Artist
Paul Gooderham
Artist
Part of events on ArtRabbit in: Ironbridge, Shropshire
During his career so far he has estimated that he has made more than 250,000 pieces which includes sales to shops, galleries and exhibitions in the UK as well as worldwide. Hand-building with the clay enables him to be more creative and, for Wolverhampton-born Paul, seeing his work come to life is the best part of the job. "I enjoy the construction and making process because this is where I get to design the piece. "The firing and glazing are necessary processes to turn them into ceramics but for me it's making them out of clay that's more enjoyable. "It's a bit like how a carpenter will spend hours creating something out of wood but then they may leave the varnishing to someone else because for them the enjoyable part is over once they've had the satisfaction of finishing the construction. "Glazing is still important though. There's an old saying that you can ruin a good pot with a bad glaze but a good glaze will not save a bad pot," explains Paul. "Now I don't have the pressure to produce in such large quantities I have more time to spend on the creative side. "After 40 years, my career has been through a lot of stages but now I have more freedom to produce what I want to produce and also what the customers like too," he adds with a smile. Taken from a publication by Heather Large from the Shropshire Star
