MAKERS | EUROPE | UK | CERAMICS

Isatu Hyde | Ceramicist

From her studio in rural Shropshire, ceramicist Isatu Hyde creates stoneware and earthenware that strike a quiet balance between everyday utility and sculptural presence. Her practice is rooted in a deep respect for pre-industrial craft traditions and shaped by a four-year apprenticeship with master potter Andrew Crouch. For London Craft Week 2025, Jamb founders Charlotte Freemantle and Will Fisher invited Isatu to take up residence in their Pimlico Road showroom, where she created striking new pieces inspired by antique ceramics from their collection.

Photography by Christopher Horwood

How did you begin?

I first encountered throwing at the wheel under the instruction of master potter Andrew Crouch. Between a degree-switch from Architecture to Sustainable design I went to his studio ‘just to make something from start to finish’. On day one I became hooked on the beauty of the material, the processes, and the sculptural possibilities of this ancient art. I haven’t looked back since.

How did you learn?

Working still mainly on the potter’s wheel, I draw heavily on pre-industrial craft from around the world. My four-year apprenticeship, and subsequent employment, with Andrew Crouch at The Marches Pottery focused on making oil-fired, reduction stoneware that took heavy influence from Chinese and Medieval European ceramics. My own key interests that have been added lie in traditional West African and Minoan ceramics.

My interest and experience in all of these themes have been informing my work as I continue to develop my skills as a potter. I’m gradually forging a personal aesthetic that I hope offers a rich but gentle addition to both intimate, personal spaces and places of shared experience. I currently work with both stoneware and earthenware clay bodies and fire in electric, gas and wood fired kilns. This is a very explorative time for me and I’m enjoying embracing challenges and commissions. 

My dedication to the traditions of production pottery are demonstrated in my tableware collection that grounds my practice in a love for making pots for daily human interaction, and my more expansive interests and inspirations are put forward in work that can stand alone as expressions of an ongoing conversation on form, light, colour, tone and surface.

Pensons flared bowls, © Isatu Hyde

How do you plan, prepare and create your works?

I think about pottery, at least subconsciously, around 80% of the time and fairly often am presented with ideas just before waking. I’m constantly assessing my work and imagining new pieces or forms. When it comes to making something new, I might sketch an idea or might just go straight to the wheel and do my ‘sketching’ there, making and remaking until I’m happy with the dimensions and form to proceed. A piece that’s destined for reproduction (part of my tableware or home range) will have to go through the whole process of being glazed and fired before I can make true judgments on it. I often make, remake, use, share an item for over a year before I start making it to sell. It so important to me that a form fits in purpose well whilst also being elegant and warm.

What does a typical day look like?

Studio prep first - covering work thrown the previous day, wedging/reconditioning clay by hand or with the pug machine. Then measuring out clay to be thrown - each design is thrown from a specific weight of clay. Then throwing items, I might do 40 mugs in a day or 15 plates for example. There’s always cardamon black tea and something sweet 11am and 4pm. On a firing day I'll be in at 8am to light the burners and then keeping an eye on the process until 9pm. These are my two favourite types of day but often there’s a lot of other studio prep to be done. I make all my glazes from scratch, so some days are taken up with that, or photographing work, admin or teaching.

The Reading Room Pottery, my studio, is located in the North Herefordshire village of Brampton Bryan, just ten miles from both the Shropshire and Powys border. It takes its name from one of the many previous lives of the building as a Reading Room for the village, and has now been repurposed by me with floor to ceiling shelves in local cedar and a small, open shed out the back for my Gas kiln.

One more thing...

An object you’ll never part with? 

A beautiful little box made by my teacher that I found deep in the shelves of his kiln shed, covered in dust. Its one of the most exquisitely made objects I know of. I left him a note next to it with a £1 coin deposit for whatever price he might ask but he wouldn’t take any more for it. 

The music you listen to while you work?

A huge range, but probably most often I listen to contemporary and classical guitar music, often Leo Brouwer played by Zsofia Boros or Antigoni Goni when I’m throwing, and then artists like Tems, Lil’Simz and Koffee to re-set the energy and motivate me through studio tasks or a slow morning. Recently quite a lot of Calypso and old cabaret songs too! 

Tenmoku Bottle, © Isatu Hyde. 

Interview by Lucrezia Lucas
Images from Christopher Horwood, Tor Harrison and Isatu Hyde