6 - 31 May 2026: First Impressions by Tim Lake

Private View Wednesday 6th May 6-8pm

We are back in Wales with potter, Tim Lake, as we welcome his work to klei for the first time. Based in Cilycwm, Carmarthenshire, Tim makes his work with a unique mix of techniques. Throwing, altering, handbuilding and using an array of homemade to tools to add texture and 'life' to his pottery.

His exhibition at klei focuses on this 'life'; "From the finger tips while throwing, the marks made when stamping or combing the soft clay to the way the viewer initially interacts with the pots, first impressions count. But like most things, when you take a second, third or fourth look other subtleties are revealed."

How were you introduced to clay? How did you end up working in ceramics full time?

I was determined to move west from where I had grown up and ended up in Plymouth as nineteen year old doing a HND in contemporary metal crafts, a course I really enjoyed but after the course finished I was finding things very difficult on the dole in Plymouth. A good friend had moved to Falmouth in Cornwall where he had started a Ceramics degree and invited me down for a visit. Not long after that visit I had moved down and enrolled on a boat building course but in the following weeks I was able to go into my friends studio and have a go at throwing and something just clicked. Having been at the end of a grinder, welder or hammer for the last couple of years and feeling of being so hands-on with clay on the wheel was a revelation.

This was the start. I took it upon myself to weld up a kick-wheel from a discarded bed frame I had found, filled a spare wheel with concrete for the flywheel and I had my first kick-wheel.

Any spare time I had I would be practising throwing on this Heath Robinson contraption and loving it. Another lucky point in these early days was meeting someone who’s mother had a pottery workshop in Suffolk and being able to spend a few weeks there in that summer and make and fire pots. This gave me enough pots to put together a portfolio of pieces and get a late interview for the Studio Ceramics degree back in Falmouth. I was offered a place on the second year of the degree and spent two fantastic years emersed nose deep in clay. 

After graduation I had a studio for a few years where I made pots part time with moderate success but plenty of endeavour. As I took on more hours as a technician at the Art College I drifted away from making a lot of pots and became a periodic dabbler but the flame never went out. In 2010/2011 I was able to take a voluntary redundancy from my roll and I focussed on making again and in 2013 I was able to go full time. We relocated our home and studio to Wales in 2016 which is where I live and work now.

Both throwing and handbuilding are such a big parts of your practice; is there one you
enjoy more than the other? Which came first?

I’ve always been a thrower from the outset and slab and hand building entered my practice later. A finger injury a few years ago accelerated the move into the combination of the two strands...

I was able to keep the injury covered but still make which is essential to me. Sometimes there nothing better than having a load of clay prepped up and ready to throw but to be honest I get just as much pleasure from having a series of foot-rings to turn or a run of slab trays to make. There’s something a little more immediate about slab and hand building which I enjoy.

You work on a kick wheel rather than electric; how does this different rhythms affect the your work and it’s aesthetic?

I’ve always thrown on a kick-wheel or momentum wheel. Initially it was all about the simplicity of the mechanisms of the wheels plus a bit of misplaced idealism. Saying that, I do believe the kick-wheel adds a rhythm and sensibility to pots that are produced on them but I’m not dismissive of electric wheels like I was as a pompous early 20 something.

Most of your tools are homemade, some of your stamps homemade too or created from
trinkets and shapes found around the house. What drew you to creating these ‘impressions’ on your work?

I’ve always been a maker and keen to do things for myself and if I can see a way to make something rather than buy it I’ll always make it. I’m also bit of scavenger and see use in discarded items whether that be a broken derailleur cog, a snapped piece of kindling wood or a surplus band saw blade, there’s always something to find which will give an individuality to the marks which may not be found at a pottery supplier.

I feel that using found objects or self made tools and stamps adds personality to the surfaces of the work and the impressions left give the glazes and slips nooks and crannies to pool and crack into.

Tell us about your kiln and how you fire your pots? Why did you decide on this route for
you work?

I designed and built my current kiln in 2017 after lots of research and somehelpful and invaluable chats with Phil Rogers and Mark Griffiths. And started firing in 2018 having built a couple of experimental kilns in 2016/17 to inform my final design and give me a chance to gather up the necessary materials to build the kiln. I’ve always wanted to fire with a live flame. 

There as brief period where I fired in an electric kiln but as soon as I had space for a gas kiln again I was straight back to reduction firing.

An analogy I think of when describing firing is that if you imagine the pots are the rocks in a river gorge and flames are the water passing through those rocks that is how I see the flames enveloping the pots with their heat, volatile elements and ash which they carry.

Do you fire alone? Talk us through the time it takes to load and fire your kiln.
Yes, I’m a one person operation. My kiln a reasonable size which I also bisque fire in aswell. When I bisque it normally takes around 300 pots to fill it. I fire purely on gas for the bisque firing which takes around 11 or so hours after a very slow rise in the initial stage of the firing....there is associated pressure with the bisque as I do not want to blow up 5 or 6 weeks worth of work!

Glazing and packing takes two or three days depending on how many and what type of pieces are going in the kiln... my latest firing had approximately 170 pieces which are all individually wadded and placed into the kiln like one big three dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

When the kiln is packed I brick up the door the evening before the firing ready for lighting early the next morning. I used to preheat the kiln the evening before but I stopped doing this and haven’t seen any difference in the firing, I just see the preheat as waste of gas now which is no good either financially and environmentally.

After an hour of reasonably slow rise to drive moisture in the wads, glaze layer and cones I ramp up the flames, purely gas at this stage until cone 07 has gone down when I put the kiln into reduction by sliding in the main damper, adjusting the passive damper and start stoking with scrap timber (either pallet wood or scrap lumber) I then periodically stoke with wood, sometimes with no gas.

I remember Phil Rogers saying that he thought the cycling of periodic heavy reduction and falling back to a more neutral atmosphere especially gave his ash glazes a vibrancy and I’ve held on to that idea with how I cycle the kiln. Therefore I don’t put the kiln in heavy reduction all the way through to top temperature. The firing isn’t too long, between 13-15hours. I fire to around 1300C, cone 11 down in the top of the kiln and Cone 10 down in the bottom.

What is the most recent ceramic vessel or piece of pottery you bought for yourself, from
where and by whom?

I have a bit of a collection of pots by other makers. For the years when I didn’t/couldn’t make pots I would often treat myself to a pot around my birthday. Luckily St Ives wasn’t too far down the road from where I lived in Cornwall and I would visit St Ives Ceramics Gallery and purchase a bit of inspiration to keep the flame burning.

Doing the weekenders over the past 10/15 years means I’ve done lots of swaps with some great makers and I love using their pots. The Artist Support Pledge initiative during the covid lockdowns was a great opportunity acquire some new pieces. These include a beautiful jug by Jeremy Steward, a pair of wood fired cups by Rebecca Proctor, an amazing piece by Dylan Bowen and a little wood fired lidded pot by John Mackenzie.

Our friends James and Tilla Waters had a cracking little beaker in their seconds box at a market we were doing together so I bought that recently and I also bought a sweet little ash glazed bowl by Lisa Armour Brown at a Gallery in Brecon.

What are you excited to explore next in your practice?

I’ve always made work of small to moderate scale and I’m becoming more interested in making some larger work. This would give me more scope to see my surfaces on larger canvases. My fascination with wall hung work has been growing for many years and I would like to dive deeper into that.

What do you enjoy about pottery and the pottery community? And how have you seen it
change and evolve over the years?

When I left art collage in 1998 it felt hard to promote yourself as a maker. Taking images getting them processed into slides or prints and posting them physically to galleries was pretty much the only way to get your work seen. I was lucky to show a few pots at galleries after graduating but that didn’t gain much momentum.

When I reemerged self promotion was much more straight forward and getting involved in the ceramic weekenders really helped. Potters seem very keen to share their knowledge and experience.

Who is a maker whose work you love and admire that we should know about but may not
have heard of?

I’ve always enjoyed Petra Steward's making process and pots as well as her husband Jeremy’s pots. I think John Mackenzie makes some interesting wood fired pots. Sandy Lockwood’s surfaces and form are fantastic too.