Featured Maker // Victoria Oliver
Victoria Oliver
Ceramicist
Tori is a ceramicist, model maker and slip caster. Her fascination with ceramics started when she was about 14; she remembers visiting the Ironbridge gorge and Coalport China museums and looking at all the delicate cups and saucers in their display cases. Whilst her family really liked the designs, Tori was mainly interested in the tiny little hand painted numbers on the bases of the pieces. She wanted to know who had made them and where they came from. A serendipitous discovery for Tori was finding out her great-aunt had been a paintress in the potteries in Stoke-on-Trent. She had left Tori a hand painted teapot from her time in the Potteries and that was it for Tori!
Tori’s career path really started on the foundation diploma at Hereford college of arts. She spent her time exploring so many materials alongside clay, but something about clay’s tactility drew her in. Tori stayed in Hereford for her BA too but during her second year, she really struggled to find her process. Tori stumbled upon a rack of really old plaster moulds in a corner of the workshop and her tutor introduced her to slip casting. She hasn’t looked back.
Tori absorbed as much as she could from old books in the library, and from people she met via Instagram with her tutors helping her as much as they could. After her BA, Tori went on to complete a Masters in Ceramic Design at Staffs University returning to the place her great-aunt had spent her working life painting other peoples designs. But Tori wanted to be able to make her own. She learnt how to perfect her moulds through more exploration, combining skills learned during her BA and masters.
After graduating, Tori and her Dad built a little workshop in the garage. Tori uses potters’ plaster and specialist types to make her models and moulds. She uses a clay called parian porcelain to create her forms, specific pigments to create colours and hues, and she uses hand printed transfers made locally by a small potteries business for her modern Memphis and copper & rose gold collections.
Here, Tori tells us more about her design process, her choice of colour and what it’s like to run a creative business.
What inspires your design process?
My process is driven by the desire to bring colour and serenity into the home, the collections I make and am developing are driven by lagom principles. Pronounced ‘LAH-gum’, the term translates to "not too little, not too much” and in Sweden it represents the art of living a balanced, slower, fuss-free life. It’s a term I found matched well with my intentions for what I want to create in my work and hope that people find comfort in the tactility of my forms.
“My process is driven by the desire to bring colour and serenity into the home... I hope that people find comfort in the tactility of my forms”
Do you have a favourite colour/ palette you like to work with?
As you might notice, my work is bright and vivid, with colours that contrast, compliment and bring different emotions in people’s reactions to particular tones. My favourites to work with are the 6 tones that make up my form & colour palette. Each day brings a new favourite, depending on whether I feel excited, calm, contemplative or looking for a little lux.
What is the hardest and best thing about running your business?
The hardest thing about running a business is finding a way to motivate yourself sometimes. You are your own best friend and also your harshest critic, you can find fault within your own work that others may not see at all. If you get it right though and something comes out of the kiln and its just how you imagined it, it’s an amazing feeling. Often, you’ll hear or read the saying “find your tribe” but once you do find yours, ones that are supportive, from different making backgrounds or met at events, you’ll never find a more amazing group of people. The strongest ones I’ve met own their own businesses and know how hard it is but how rewarding it is too.
What advice would you give to others who are starting a creative business?
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes in your making; you cannot get things perfect from the off. If your cast isn’t right, or your glaze comes out all bubbly on the surface or pieces break and warp, it’s ok, each time you learn from it and about your process. Read up as much as you can, making connections with other makers and creatives can help push you forward when you feel lost, they can be your biggest cheerleaders too.
What is your proudest achievement?
My proudest achievement to date was that in 2020, the year the world came to a stop, I finished my master’s degree in an online submission. I launched a new website and created an online store, and my first market. I had my work featured in “Crafts” published by the Crafts council England. I did it whilst sometimes (most the time) feeling scared but excited for what comes next, and I’m looking forward to 2021.
Find more of Victoria’s work on her website & instagram.
www.victoriaoliverceramicdesign.co.uk/shop
@VictoriaOliverCeramicDesign
