EOT Festive Collab
We are delighted to introduce local maker Emily Tapp, founder of EOT ceramics.
We first met Emily in Paris when we both attended the Cultivator Trade and Export Programme with a visit to Maison & Objet. We were immediately attracted to her earthy, seascape glazes, thrown in her studio near the Helford Passage on Cornwall's south coast.
In support of the wonderful work of this local maker, we are giving away one of her candle holders and a beeswax candle with every order from our Gold Gift Edit placed between 1st-7th December.
We chatted with Emily to share some of the inspiration behind her pots...
What is your background that led you to becoming a ceramicist? I studied Fine Art at Falmouth University, graduating in 2018. I was making paintings using found pigments to create paints and inks - and came to the medium of ceramics firstly out of intrigue. I wanted to know what these pigments I had been collecting from around Cornwall might do in a ceramic glaze, transformed by the heat of a kiln. I was really taken by the alchemy and unpredictability of it all.
Firstly I did a glaze making course, making some rather basic pinch pots as 3D canvases for my degree show to document my glaze tests, and I was hooked by the medium of clay. Once I graduated I started making more pots and less paintings and now I make pots full time - but I think my glazes do still have a painterly aspect and I’m still as fascinated by glaze chemistry as I was back then.
Do you prefer to call yourself a ceramicist or a potter? I refer to myself both as a potter and a ceramicist. I think I’m too early on in my career to decide which one I am for sure - although as I make mainly functional things currently I suppose I am more of a potter. Maybe over the coming years as I tap back into my fine art background with some more conceptual pieces the ceramicist in me will emerge.
When did you launch your EOT brand? I launched EOT Ceramics around 9 months after I started to teach myself to throw. I was lucky enough to be loaned a wheel by a local potter so I could throw (excuse the pun!) myself into the learning process. I taught myself mainly through watching countless videos of other people throwing on YouTube. I sold my first series of ceramic bowls painted with mineral slips on my website in April 2019 under the name Emily Olivia Tapp. Since then my work has evolved and I sell under ‘EOT Ceramics’ but I still use the same stamp to ‘sign’ the bases of my pots with the letters EOT.
I can see your work has a deep connection to the landscape, is Cornwall of particular importance to your inspiration? Cornwall has inspired my work since I moved here in 2015 to study. I think the landscape here is so special that it can’t not in some way or another. I wasn’t necessarily a landscape artist when I was at university but I was very inspired by the genre of Land Art and so a lot of my work used found materials or was made in site specific locations. These days I am mainly inspired by colour, my glazes echo what I am surrounded by in both their tones but also their textures: variegated and unpredictable.
All the glazes in my new collection are named after Cornish words: Mor, Niwl, Holan, Tewyn, Karn and Glas, which mean: Sea, Mist, Salt, Dune, ‘Stack of Rock’ and Glas in particular is a special word meaning Colours of the Sea: Blue, Green, Grey. My good friend Rachael is studying Cornish language and she helped me with these names and it feels so special to share these with others who may not otherwise have been exposed to Cornish language in any other way.
What does the future hold - where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? So far, I’ve been taking each year as it comes. I moved into my studio at Argal Home Farm, near the Helford River back in April 2022 and I’m lucky to be surrounded by other wonderful small businesses and creatives here. I hope in 5 years time I’m still making pots here, maybe with someone else in the studio to help me, teaching my love of clay through my workshops and stocking my work in independent shops and cafes across the UK. Fingers crossed!
Photographs by Rachael Reid
Orders placed from our Gold Gift Edit between 1st-7th December will receive an EOT candle holder and candle - as shown above. Please note, Emily Tapp is a sole maker with limited capacity so this give away is limited to one candle holder and candle per customer, until stock runs out (so if the same customer orders multiple times they will still only receive one candle holder). Thank you for your understanding.
