Michelle Lowe Pottery

Michelle is a studio potter, making small batches of hand-thrown and decorated functional pots in her garden workshop by the sea in Edinburgh. She also makes one-off exhibition pieces and commissions.

The inspiration for the lively, detailed decoration on her pots is drawn from the plants, flowers and berries in her garden and nearby 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.

Her pots are made from red earthenware clay coated in a creamy clay slip and then decorated with coloured slips and oxides and traditional sliptrailing and sgraffito mark-making.

Michelle came to ceramics by a round-about route via a background in Social Anthropology and a decade working for human rights and social justice charities. In 2007-9 she trained as an assistant to Bärbel Dister at Cromarty Pottery. Since her apprenticeship, she has continued to learn through working for other experienced potters including Niek Hoogland, Pim van Huisseling in the Netherlands, Josie Walter in Derbyshire and Maureen Minchin in Ardnamurchan.