Pat Joyce

Pat first tried his hand at pottery in an evening class over a decade ago. He was quickly taken in by the medium and has had own ceramics studio for almost as long, beginning with a fellowship at Digswell Arts before moving to his current space in Hertford.

His work is in the form of functional art, such as hand-thrown kitchenware, and more decorative sculptural pieces.

Pat’s focus is on experimenting with dark, heavily grogged clays; hand-building vessels with beaten, sawn and carved facets. Raku firing crowns the pieces with blackened, charred and metallic surface finishes. Inspired by meteors on impact, the results are striking, heavily textured, tactile works that iridesce.

Pat spends much of his time outside of the studio teaching curious makers to explore their creativity and become more skilled in using clay as an artistic medium.