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CLAY RESEARCH GROUP

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Clay Research Group is a space of material enquiry led by Rachel Kurdynowska and held at Helgate Pottery in Norwich. The group meets weekly to make, discuss and investigate clay.

​​​​The CRG 2024 curriculum was designed and written by Rachel. Exploring clay, creativity, community and location. 

Term 1 / Production & Gathering

Term 2 / Collective Testing 

Term 3 / Glaze Dissection 

Term 4 / Reflective Making

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2024 Evaluative essay -

The intention of this course was, and is, to provide a better knowledge and understanding of ceramic materials. The structure of the year - production & gathering, followed by testing materials, glaze research, and evaluation-through-making, was designed to build a natural accumulation of advanced material knowledge alongside nurtured confidence, enabling more advanced testing. 

    The shape of a concertina, opening large and becoming small is a good visual metaphor for my approach in teaching such a course. During our 40 weeks together we have mixed raw powders to make clays & slips, gathered & processed wild material, shared individual lines of creativity, discussed documentation, experienced Lowestoft history with local historian Ivan Bunn, analysed ceramic materials through repeat firing & testing, studied recipe books & continually shared results… This intensive and expansive filling up of experience and possibility almost as a bombardment, has ironically aided focus as something to push up against or as a way of seeing a clear path of individual methodology.  

    Beneath the curriculum, which held emphasis on clay, creativity, location and community, was a carefully considered format that would also provide a space for sharing, thinking and focusing on ones own practice as part of a group. Therefore the curriculum of making, testing, and listening to ceramic materials, has also been reflected in the connections, friendships and regard formed within the relationships of everybody in the group. The space has grown because of this, which in turn has aided our ability to discuss, dissect and better understand the ceramic materials we’ve been exploring. This collective holding has also offered the rare chance to think out-loud unedited through ideas and experiments on a regular basis within a safe space of collective enquiry. These meandering conversations providing important threads of contemplation between sessions. (An example of which can be read following this text.) The process of talking through one’s individual practice in trusted company has been a source of momentum in our last term of the course. 

    It’s the strength of community that has materialised during this project that will push this group of CRG graduates into a new year of clay exploration and investigation. Chiming the new with the old as we return to Happisburgh, respectfully redepositing gathered materials that have not been used. This ritual will mark the beginning of our second year together which will run without a curriculum.