British ceramicist Anna Thomson creates lighting and vessels for interiors. Balancing design, craft and materials to create award-winning pieces that explore the intrinsic qualities of vitreous clay bodies together with the possibilities of new technologies and industrial techniques within a craft context. Her work is inspired by the possibilities of process and influenced by her love of architecture and the coastal environment.
Working from her home studio in East Sussex Anna designs and makes her lighting and vessel collections, enjoying working closely with clients on commissions for interiors as well as selling through galleries and at events. Lighting installations showcase the gentle translucencies of porcelain, parian and bone china, the forms accentuated by harnessing the natural differences in material thickness through process. Installations celebrate variations in form and the characteristics of the different clays, from the warm translucent hues of porcelain to the cleaner white of bone china. Vessels are approached experimentally, pushing the possibilities of slip-casting to an extreme through complex and innovative mould-making with skilful casting techniques using hand-dyed clays in a signature monochrome palette. Anna’s vessel collections explore crisp geometries on multi-profiled vessels with an architectural feel, emerging patterns on simple cylindrical vessels and soft felt-like surface qualities of a unique erosion technique on round-based balance vessels. Background: Anna graduated from Brighton University with a 1st class honours degree in Wood, Metal Ceramics and Plastics in 1997. Early in her career Anna co-founded the design house Hub with Andrew Tanner. A ceramics homewares business at the forefront of bringing sculptural ideas into functional design in the early 2000s. Hub worked with UK based ceramics manufacturers in Staffordshire to produce a collection that boasted some of the big names in design retailers internationally and received much acclaim in the press. Those manufacturers were adversely affected by the financial crash of 2008 and led both Anna and Andrew into new ventures. Alongside a young family and keen to explore the freedom of experimentation in the making as well as the designing Anna set up a making studio at her home where she researches and explores the techniques and principles of manufacturing processes and the role of new technologies within a craft environment. Andrew followed a route designing for manufacturers and the retail sector and is now the Creative Director for Habitat UK and an ambassador for Design Nation.
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Selected member of Design Nation
Proud to be a member of
The Design Trust |