About Michelle

Michelle Lowe makes lively, illustrated earthenware pots to be used and enjoyed. She works in her garden workshop by the sea in Edinburgh where she lives with her husband and two small children.

She has always loved clay and making, but came to a career in ceramics by a round-about route after an MA in Social Anthropology and a decade working for human rights and social justice charities in Scotland and South America.

Her passion for clay really took off in 2006, when as part of a sabbatical from her post at Amnesty international, she worked as a summer assistant to Bärbel Dister at Cromarty Pottery in the Scottish Highlands. She returned as an apprentice in 2008-9 and learnt essential craft and practical skills involved in running a busy pottery.

In 2010, she set up her own workshop in Edinburgh, initially at Gorgie City Farm where she taught classes. She continued to learn through workshops, books and short periods working for other experienced potters including Niek Hoogland, Pim van Huisseling, Josie Walter and Maureen Minchin.

About the pots

Most of Michelle’s work is thrown on a wheel and a few pieces such as her quirky toast racks are hand-built using slabs. When leatherhard her red earthenware pieces are dipped in a cream background slip and then decorated with brushed and trailed coloured slips. She later draws through the coloured slips using sgraffito (lines etched into the clay with a sharp needle tool). She also sometimes applies extra coloured layers using glazes which add translucent softer runnier marks. She also adds textured sprigs and stamps to some pieces using clay stamps made from impressions of plants and berries.

She enjoys making pots for cooking, serving and eating food and also makes commissions for celebration pieces and tiles for bathrooms and kitchens. She loves to make special bowls, platters or jugs which might become the centrepiece of a table for family gatherings and parties.

The decoration on many of her pots is drawn from the plants, flowers and berries in Scottish woodlands and hedgerows. She loves to capture the shapes and colours of the humble but cheery plants which brighten our days and herald the changing of seasons. Some favourites are dandelions, snowdrops, primroses, wild garlic, bluebells, and autumnal hips and haws and berries.

She also makes work with other illustrations including ranges inspired by the simple pleasures of gardening, foraging in woodlands and hedgerows, pot collecting, wild swimming and riding bikes.