Visiting Sandy Brown

Visiting Sandy Brown

I really like Sandy Brown.     I also really like Sandy Browns work.

On 27th September 2023 I visited Sandy in her studio at Appledore, nearby Bideford, Devon.      I was visiting friends who live in the area and rang up on the off-chance that she would be available and willing for me, with hardly any notice,  to come over to see her studio and work.      No need to worry.   She was open to my ‘popping over’ and when I got there she was openness personified in her willingness to open up her studio, show me around and talk about her work.      I wasn’t surprised, as I had met with the same robust sharing of herself and her approach to ceramics/art when I had interviewed her (over the phone) as part of an MA dissertation completed earlier in the year.

What draws me to Sandy and her work is her dedication to playfulness and intuitive design.     She insists that planning and forethought are the ‘killers’ of innovation and creativity.   This is something I am trying to bring into my current work – particularly in the ‘Bodies’ series.   Her work is full of bright swirling colours, monumental forms and improbable compositions.     Recurring themes are tubes surmounted with irregular baubles, soft thrown plates and dishes that flow rather than contain and references to the spirits of time and place.    Though Sandy would call the ‘tubes’ columns I see in them the same energy that I am experimenting to find – through different processes – in my figurative Bodies work.

This does, however, belie a carefully pre-planned construction process and a sharp commercial mind.   Works such as Temple and Goddess need careful planning to ensure they are robust and fit for public display.   And this need for construction of the finished work needs collaboration with trusted people versed in the mysteries of structural integrity.     Even the basic columns – such as those in her Tea House exhibition – need metal inserts and careful balancing acts!

Sandy insists she does not plan the work itself.   When asked about planning her response is “no, no, no – that is putting your head before being creative.    You should do your work and then write it up afterwards”.     She never plans what she is going to make, though with her larger works she does have to work out the technicalities of making once she has the idea of what she is going to make.  And that is all the more apparent when you see the work face to face.    

"Re Temple and Earth Goddess for example, I did know in both cases that I would make a Temple and an Earth Goddess. I did not know at all what they would be like.

So I did a doodle of each one. I got some clay, set a timer for 30 minutes, emptied my mind, and proceeded to doodle on the theme of Tempe, and later did the same on the theme of Earth Goddess.

When the time was up and I could see and appreciate what I had done, it was all there in that clay doodle sketch. So when it came to scaling up I most certainly did plan. I knew what form it was going to be, and within that I allowed as much room as possible for improvisation. That is in the glaze painting, where I can then be free." Sandy Brown, my text conversation with her on 11th March 2024.

However, she was very methodical with glaze tests when she first set out 50 years ago.    Did lots of them.    She still uses the same colours.    

I very much like the idea of a limited pallet that complements the forms and ideas, rather than the rash of colours and textures that some potters seem to make a central feature of their work.    Looking to the traditional oriental glazes and decorating techniques, such as hakeme, they build their presence through restraint and intuitive application.     This does not rule out flamboyant colours or shapes but works on the principle that even in flamboyance and design  less-is-more.     In my own work I hope to focus on using the specific qualities (texture and colour and consistency) of the clay together with a limited range of glazes/slips. 

The scale of ‘Temple’ really is something.       It is genuinely monumental, in both scale and conception.  It is a full-size building that can hold 30 people,   Originally commissioned for a sculpture event in Chatsworth gardens, when in situ it was approached through 3 totemic arches, and was offset by columns topped with symbols – all flamboyantly and colourfully patterned.     The Temple itself is composed of thousands of tiles for the walls and ceiling, with sitting stools strategically placed inside so the ‘visitor’ can sit and contemplate whatever they want.     “She wants her Temple to be a “space for contemplation”, a place of rare thought, since “we don’t have in our culture non-denominational or sacred places which are spiritually uplifting”. This is an extrovert place for introvert an muse.” (i)

Sitting inside with Sandy was very moving, despite its current cramped and partially dismembered state inside her studio.    Apparently it is waiting for a permanent home where it can be on public display.

The need and ability to collaborate in bringing her ideas to life was also apparent in the  massive working bell hung inverted in a wooden cradle, also in the giant trolly kiln that sits alongside two more modest (relatively speaking) top-loader electric kilns.

When I interviewed Sandy in April I specifically asked about the construction of Goddess, which is on display in St Austell town centre.      Because it is so tall, she used her normal clay body, in which she had confidence, and only coated the piece with the local china clay.   Concerning the planning of Earth Goddess – again it started with doodles.   All her large figures come from doodles.  In the case of the Earth Goddess she then had to use her skills to upsize her chosen doodle.   Her post-doodle plans had to include lots of safety considerations, so she employed a structural engineer for the necessary technical skills to keep it stable and safe.    Again, due to its sheer size it had to be made in sections and put together on site, which required specialist knowledge, which she bought in.     Some lovely maquettes that she made as part of the non-planning planning process were around her studio – interesting to see both the design and the decoration emerging …..

Sandy seems to be looking at music making or noise generation as part of her work.     The large bell produced a beautiful resonating clang, and the two table-top xylophone-type constructions were interesting.    Sandy asked me not to record the xylophones as they are a concept in progress.

All through the studio, and packed into cupboards and side rooms, there are little maquettes and doodles.     Sandy says she loves her doodles.   They are how she works out her ideas – even the monumental pieces like Temple.    She keeps them all – which having seen them in the studio I can well believe.