57 PROFILE BUTTON UP Stockwell Ceramics supplies a range of brooches, earrings, necklaces, cufflinks and hanging decorations, and talks to Craft Focus about the company’s dedication to remaining small but successful When did you start up and why? I started Stockwell Ceramics in 1989 to make thrown domestic pottery on a small scale. I’ve always been a maker and wanted to turn my making into an income. My interest was in large decorative pieces using coloured slips and glazes with much of the decoration completed before the first biscuit firing. I continued to experiment with slips and glazes always looking for new effects. Then one day I was taking the small discs that I used for glaze tests out of the latest glaze firing when it occurred to me that if I made holes in them, they would be like buttons. I tried it out and it worked. Hey presto, the birth of my button making future! It wasn’t, however, quite as simple as that. I tested the ‘buttons’ in the washing machine and found to my amazement that they survived even after several washes. I then received a postcard from a friend showing a collection of buttons made by the wellknown potter Lucy Rie. These were a great inspiration together with the discovery that there were many other people making ceramic buttons too. I started to run the button making alongside the domestic pottery on quite a small scale. This of course was in pre internet days when websites weren’t even thought of. The buttons were a pleasant change from large ceramic pieces. A tiny canvas representing a small investment of time and materials on which I could try out almost anything. The biggest break for my company came when I was asked to make buttons to go in the V&A shop to run alongside their Surrealist Exhibition in 2007. This led to many further requests for products when we expanded our offering into jewellery too. What prompted you to launch the business? I don’t think I could say that I ever really launched the business. It was just an idea that grew and evolved gradually generating enough business to employ a steadily increasing workforce. We have remained small. A collection of half a dozen young designers who work with
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