Peter Black’s salt glazed stoneware and porcelain pieces are thrown, and finished on the wheel, sometimes altered, and assembled, including functional as well as one-off decorative or sculptural pieces. He strives to make each piece individual, including when part of a series, such as mugs, bowls, or cups. Adding a variety of banding rings to the work evokes the marks of turning, the softness and spinning of the clay on the wheel, revealing the story of its making. The banding profiles are mostly influenced by architectural detail on buildings he has visited over the years, but the effect of the banding they create on the pots he finds particularly rewarding, suggesting on the one hand support, protection, safety, and security, but at other times perhaps a constraint, confinement, or caging. In his youth Peter collected (mainly damaged) Chinese Kangxi and 18C European porcelain, regularly visiting Portobello and Bermondsey Market at 6am.
His making came later, but he feels it was influenced by the pieces he bought, studied, and have loved over the years. These pots have of course been themselves influenced by earlier ceramic, silver, and pewter forms. Salt-glazing is desperately hard work, but for Peter it produces a shine and texture that can’t be matched. It offers great potential with its characteristic texture of subtle or heavy orange peel. Salt-glaze is perfectly transparent and does not remove the banding and mark making on his pieces.
His work focuses on the familiar, taking it forward with a dash of humour and an oblique nod to its source. At its best he feels this approach produces freshness and vibrancy, and the everyday can become something unique and individual, with its own character. Peter is most happy with a finished piece that makes him smile, that might be an old friend and that he finds himself seeking out.
