"Potter and writer Edmund de Waal, a dark silhouette of neat workwear against the blinding white of his studio, is erupting with thoughts, all of them tumbling out of him at once. He is giving me a tour of the former gun factory on a London industrial estate gently disciplined into architectural calm. It has work stations for his staff (it's quite an operation); store rooms;"
"At either end, up discreet sets of steps, are the places of raw creation. One, with its potter's wheel, is where he makes; the other, with its desk and bookshelves, is where he writes. He opens a door to the room housing his two mighty kilns, its back wall lined with rows of shelves with experiments in form and glaze, and tells me of his irritation when people comment on the sheer tidiness of the whole place."
Edmund de Waal occupies a former gun factory transformed into a disciplined porcelain studio with separate areas for making, study, storage and two large kilns. The studio's strict cleanliness stems from porcelain's sensitivity: dust and dirt can cause explosions, bloating, dunting and other kiln failures. Long potter apprenticeships included constant sweeping to avoid clay dust that can cause silicosis, or potter's lung. Dust pervades pottery work and links present practice to historical production centers. The White Road portrays the dust-blown ceramics city of Jingdezhen. Letter to Camondo evokes the shtetl dust of a family origin near Odesa and their later prosperity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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