Image: Ceramic vessel by Sasha Price, Photo: Stephen Brayne

 

Talking to Sasha Price about the distinctive pattern of little bumps and spikes that adorn her ceramics is an interesting business. When pressed about what they mean, she just laughs. “I don’t know. I just wanted to do something else to the surface to make them more tactile, give them a roughness. I don’t even know what I call them.”

Sasha’s vessels invite comparisons with such a spectrum of objects - from pebbles to alien forms – that it is not surprising she is hard to pin down on why they have such a character. Each piece is made by hand, using what Sasha admits is pretty unorthodox technique. In her studio in Essex Road, London, she rolls out two big slabs or clay, then in a tense moment, wraps them around her mould, all balanced in her lap, until somehow the pieces finally come together.

“The shape all depends on where I’m holding it, trying to stop it from falling apart,” she says. Periodically, a helping hand from a friend is called upon to prop up the clay in one vital place to prevent any tragedy. It all comes together in one touch-and-go moment, Sasha doubtless breathing an almost postnatal sigh of relief before the nurturing process of hole-cutting, node-adding and glazing can begin. “I’ve no idea what other ceramicists would think if they saw what I did,” she says.

But then during her degree course at Camberwell, the other art students would not be surprised to see her wandering around with a plaster-filled balloon, nestled into her body like a child. The resulting human-moulded ceramic shapes became supersmooth pieces, eggshell glazed in candy colours and tantalising as big sweets. “They all had places you could hold onto – they had no purpose, except for being something that you wanted to touch.”

She describes this final project, Objects of Desire, as “what came about when I stopped caring what everyone else thought and made something that I liked. I had been trying to fulfil a brief, struggling with the culture of having too much art school freedom without much direction.”

Relying quite heavily on her body to create her ceramics means that each piece breathes with its own personality. Added to that, the spots, nipples or protrusions – arranged geometrically across the surface – bring a uniquely beautiful quality to these shapes.

Having only taken up ceramics after starting a City Lit evening pottery course – “with the old ladies” - after the birth of Max, her son, Sasha is bemused by the extent of her progress to this, her debut year at 100% Design.

 

September 2003