Friday Favorites: Ceramic Artist Roy Hamilton
For four decades, artist Roy Hamilton has been a top choice of decorators in search of timeless ceramic accessories for the home.
It all began in the mid 1960s, when Hamilton began taking pottery classes at a New York City YMCA. (At the time, he was helming the American offices of Liberty of London — how cool!) Soon after, he set up a weekend potting studio in his garage. Hamilton focused on classic shapes, allowing his creativity to shine in the decorative treatments applied to each piece.
Though his techniques have evolved over the years, Hamilton’s approach remains much the same. Instead of using traditional glazing, he applies colored slip, a watered-down form of clay that he tints with mineral oxides such as cobalt and iron, to each form.
The slip forms a blank canvas to which Hamilton applies his distinctive decorations, which are often inspired by his experience with textile construction. Geometric patterns, like tattersall, basketweave and herringbone, are achieved with a technique called slip-trailing, in which the slip is piped on to the vessel with a small rubber syringe.
Hamilton has also created a “linen” finish (pictured in the collection at the top of this post) by transferring the slip to the body of the piece using a mesh fabric…
While other patterns are achieved via a hot-wax resist method derived from batik printing of cloth.
Love Hamilton’s work as much as we do? Click here to learn more: royhamiltonstudios.com
All images via royhamiltonstudios.com
