Craft and Textiles / Pottery
Potter turns hobby into career
The shelves of Rebecca Finnerty’s pottery studio are filled with some of her bowls, cups and saucers that do not quite meet her exceptionally high standards.
To the untrained eye, these “seconds” are just as beautiful as her creations that are used in cafes and restaurants and are for sale at several shops across Bristol.
But Rebecca is a perfectionist. She has some seconds at her home in St George but is thinking of treating herself and her fiancé Doug to a full set of new items as a wedding present.
If you want Rebecca’s work in your own home, you’re in luck as she has just launched her first online store via her website.
Pottery, in Rebecca’s lilting Dublin accent, is “laborious”. “It’s so methodical. But then people have what I made in their kitchen. I love thinking about the daily habits of each day and the objects we use within that.”
Rebecca Finnerty outside her pottery studio in Lawrence Hill – photo: Jonny Simpson
Rebecca has lived in Bristol for five years since moving to the same city as her brother Keith after graduating from university in Ireland.
She soon found jobs as a barista at Hart’s Bakery and Full Court Press, with Hart’s the first place to sell her pottery after she “fell in love” with the craft following signing up to an evening class.
After her shifts making coffee came to an end, Rebecca used to go to her former studio at Maze in Barton Hill to “practise, practise, practise” and watch lots of YouTube videos.
“I put so many hours into it. Eventually something clicked!”
Espresso cups made by Rebecca on sale at Prior in Quakers Friars – photo: Martin Booth
Rebecca still works one day a week in Hart’s but spends the rest of her time within a studio in an arch in Lawrence Hill that she shares with several other ceramicists.
“It’s so inspiring to share this space and we’re all learning from each other,” says Rebecca on a recent morning as some of her new cups were ready to be sent to Greytone in St Paul’s.
Twenty-eight-year-old Rebecca describes her work as “contemporary, minimal forms inspired by earthly tones and textures”.
In the same way that many restaurants source food and drink from as close to Bristol as possible, this can also be the same with the plates we eat the food on and vessels we drink out of.
“I love that circular economy,” says Rebecca. “And being part of that narrative.”
As well as Greytone – co-owned by another former Full Court Press barista, Charlotte Fong – Rebecca’s coffee cups and saucers are also used at Root in Wapping Wharf and Goldfinch in Westbury-on-Trym, where she also runs workshops and courses.
Rebecca makes “contemporary, minimal forms inspired by earthly tones and textures” – photo: Jonny Simpson
Alongside her more functional pieces, Rebecca’s artistic work enables her to be more experimental – even using wild clay that she has foraged herself rather than buying it from a packet.
It is a few of these failed and cracked bowls that are on the shelves at her studio just a stone’s throw from Lawrence Hill train station. Only by trial and error can you know how many degrees the kiln should be turned up to with items made from wild clay.
“Pottery is a humbling craft,” Rebecca laughs. “It doesn’t always do what you want it to do! But there’s something fundamentally human to want a vessel.
“Having a handmade mug rather than buying something from Ikea is just so precious. I love that my work can be part of somebody’s day.”
Find Rebecca’s online shop at www.finnertyceramics.com/store
Main photo: Jonny Simpson
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