Michelle Freemantle

After graduating from Derby University with a BA in Applied Arts, Michelle Freemantle was selected to take part in IWCAT 2000, an international workshop in Tokoname, Japan and she was subsequently invited back two years later, to make work for an international group exhibition. Japan had a huge effect on her and her approach to ceramics. Through staying with a host family she saw at mealtimes each dish complimenting the food it contained. Conscious thought had gone into the placing of foods and the choice of ceramics used. She liked the idea that she wasn’t simply eating to sustain her body, she was feeding her eyes and her mind at the same time. She returned to make a body of work in a studio in Hameenlinna after spending time studying in Finland.

Before setting up her own studio in Wetwang, East Yorkshire, she worked as an assistant to Rob Bibby at Woodnewton Pottery as well as with salt glazer Christine Pedley in La Borne, France.

Michelle creates functional ceramics that are tactile and visually pleasing, using a mix of hand built, press mould and thrown techniques. Lines and text, often snippets of thoughts or poetry written during her travels, are inscribed into the surfaces and slips applied.

Each individual, handcrafted piece, strives to embody its own character and she hopes enriches the eating and drinking experience.

The series Grasping the Orient was born from the visual and mental impact Japan had on Michelle. The circle and cross imagery represents how experiences are carried with you throughout your life and never really having a cut-off point, due to them infiltrating the past, present and future. Michelle wrote quite a bit of poetry during her Japanese workshop and its found its way into some of the pieces here.

Talvi is the name she has given to her range inspired by visits to Finland, and in Finnish this translates as winter. Over the past 25 years she has visited Finland on a number of occasions and fell in love with its snowy landscapes. During the winter there are many blue, blue days transforming all the shadows on the snow into different hues of blue. The silver birches, lakes, patination on the land, made from the likes of roads, fence and field boundaries intersecting through blankets of white provided inspiration for this range.

Landlines is her latest range. Living in the East Yorkshire Wolds you are surrounded by agriculture in all directions. Throughout the seasons, it is a constant visual source, of changing field colours and markings; yellow rape seed being predominant in late spring, then there’s potatoes, wheat and barley. Lots of undulation goes on with the valleys and plenty of chalk, forming her palette of yellow, green, white and grey/black. Being elevated, there are some great vistas to be seen when coming off the Wolds: field markings, tractor scarring, fence and hedge boundaries all blend to create her Landlines series.