Emma Godden Ceramics

Emma is a ceramic artist and pottery teacher living in Hindhead. Her inspiration comes from nature, including wildflowers and seed-heads in her local countryside, as well as plants and birds in her garden. She also has an interest in botanical drawings; although scientific, they are not exact representations like a photograph, instead they show us details of a plant through the eyes of the artist. Emma hopes to capture this in her work. Emma hand sculpts garden ornaments including poppy seed heads and has developed a bronze glaze which highlights their shape and catches the sunlight. These are fired to a high stoneware temperature to ensure that the pieces are frost resistant. To create her cylinder vases, Emma combines lino printing with clay. She enjoys the process of starting with a sketch, adapting the design into positive and negative and then carving it into the lino, before rolling on the colour (a combination of metal oxides and ceramic stains) and pressing the lino cut into the soft clay. The end piece is tactile due to the impressed relief of the lino cut, so to fully appreciate them you need to pick them up and touch them. All of Emma’s pieces are made by hand in her garden studio. In 2017 Emma was shortlisted for the Surrey Artist of the Year Competition and exhibited work at the New Ashgate Gallery, who have continued to stock her vases. This is the fifth year that Emma will be taking part in Surrey Artists’ Open Studios.