Brian Richards

Dimensions: 46 x 65 x 35 cm 

Materials: Polished ceramic, various threads (on and off spools), indigo dyed felt and sand

Studying nuclear-astrophysics, working in middle-management for a multinational corporation and playing a lot of bridge gave Brian a love of numbers, people and factories, but did little to prepare him for creating art. Today, he is locked in an exploration of life, love and the universe through the medium of clay.

Not yet at peace with himself, he lives to the mantra ‘so much to learn, so little time’ which, recently, has seen him produce charcoal sketches, burnished and polished free-form, smoke-fired sculptures, some pieces where the hole is king and some others where flowing marks are the order of the day. His current passion is colour on a thrown and altered form – and table tennis! He signs his work with a simple ‘31’.

Brian was immediately drawn to the textile items in the Crafts Study Centre; there was a softness, a flow about them that contrasted with ceramics. One maker stood out from the others, Ethel Nettleship, because of her life experiences: she was a renowned cellist – not considered an instrument for ‘young ladies’ – an ambulance driver in World War I and the pre-eminent bobbin lace designer/maker of her day. 

Paraphrasing her words, ‘She made what she wanted to’. Brian has attempted to encapsulate this life in one complex piece.