Victoria and Michael Eden established their workshop at Hale in Cumbria in 1981 to produce a range of domestic pottery. In 1999 they published Slipware: Contemporary Approaches (published by A & C Black). Their work is hand thrown using red earthenware and then dipped into a copper slip and decorated when biscuit fired at 908ºC, after which a final clear glaze is applied and the works fired again to 1060ºC.

Glossary

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Earthenware

    One of the three major types of pottery, the others being stoneware and porcelain. It is opaque, soft and porous unless covered completely with glaze. The firing temperatures can be low - 800ºC or high - 1200ºC, when it starts to vitrify, becoming stoneware.

  • Glaze

    Vitreous coatings applied to pottery to make objects watertight and as a form of decoration. Also a glaze can be a thin, translucent or transparent coating applied to the surface of a painting to modify the colour tones. Glazes may also be applied on top of one another as a means of creating a sense of depth and translucency.

  • Slip

    A mixture of clay and water mixed together to the consistency of single cream. Used with metal oxides to produce different colours for decoration and to dip pots for an overall coating. Slip can also be trailed, sponged, stencilled, poured and painted onto the pot; and for binding clay surfaces and casting.