Florian Gadsby, ceramicist, author and videographer

Florian Gadsby and his work

I expect you are familiar with Florian Gadsby, whether that is through his amazing process videos or the simple, stunning photos of his ceramics. Perhaps you are lucky enough to own and use a piece of his work. I am very pleased to include him within Pottery People and his answers to my questions are beautifully answered. I must say, his childhood and school sounds wonderful. Read on…

Who are you?

I’m Florian Gadsby, a potter, videographer and author, roll it all up however you like. I started to make pottery on a more serious level when I was about sixteen and that’s all I’ve done since. I sometimes feel guilty when I say that, as if I’m missing a good helping of life experience but at the same time, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

I underwent a rather stringent pottery education, attending the once great DCCoI Ceramics Skills & Design course in Thomastown, Ireland, then I returned to London, where I apprenticed with Lisa Hammond for three years, all of which was topped off by a brief six-months in Mashiko, Japan, where I trained with Ken Matsuzaki. I now live and work in London, where I’ve been since I was a child, in a leaky studio on the green outskirts of the city. I make reduction fired stoneware, seldom porcelain, functional and sculptural wares but the other half of my life is spent documenting that practice online.

Such a satisfying image

Why do you also have a thing with ceramics?

I’ve always liked working with my hands and went to a school that embraced craft and taught it with as much importance and vigour as maths, science and all the other academic subjects. Thus, the idea of eventually becoming a potter never felt like an unusual choice, it felt like a normal route. Gradually, I’ve come to realise how fascinating it is to build a personal, visual language with a certain medium that’s very unique to you. I probably fuss over this more than anything nowadays and I’m obsessed with doubling-down and fleshing that language out. We’re all human, us potters, we use hands that operate in more-or-less the same way and use materials that are relatively similar, yet we all produce work that’s so extraordinary different, how cool is that? We’re capable of so much.

Florian’s work on the wheel

Potters’ tools

When did ceramics come into your life?

I hate answering this question as my response makes me sound so pompous but the answer, sadly, is from the earliest of ages. My dad collected pottery when we lived in the countryside long ago and there were arrangements of white, angular and ridged pots, (Keith Murray), that filled the house. We ate off of handmade pottery and then, low and behold, I was sent to the aforementioned school. In kindergarten we dug clay up from beneath pine trees in the school’s grounds and rolled it into little figurines that we baked alongside bread we’d make in wood-fired ovens. Later, we built kilns, mosaics and Roman arches from little blocks of clay, essentially, pottery, and many other crafts, were linked to other subjects we were learning at any particular time. Material knowledge is severely underrated in my opinion and all children should learn where the objects that fill up our lives come from.

Florian’s beautiful drawings

Where can we find you on a typical day?

Either hunched over the potter’s wheel or my computer. My life is so split these days between these, making pottery, editing videos and narrating them, or writing. I try to spend Monday to Tuesday throwing, Wednesday and Thursday trimming and finishing, then on Friday I’m latched to my laptop creating content for the coming week. It’s a vicious cycle and I can’t see it lasting forever but at the same time I’m crushed by the dopamine addiction that’s flooded my system since 2014. When I do manage to break the cycle I’m out with the dog, walking on Hampstead Heath or the waterlogged greens that surround North London.

Ceramic coffee pourovers

What are your plans for the future?

I want to buy a studio and live life without the bane of an uninterested, careless landlord. That’s all that’s keeping me going at the moment, every penny goes into a nest-egg that’ll eventually give me more agency.

Beyond that, less social media, a smidge more writing and many more decades of throwing pottery I hope.

Look at that glaze…