MAKERS | EUROPE | UK | CERAMICS

Kate Malone MBE | Ceramicist

From the moment a pre-teen Kate Malone MBE set eyes on a ceramics studio, she was hooked. In the decades since, Kare has gone on to become one of Britain's most celebrated ceramicists, her influence and contribution going far beyond commercial ceramics. Along with her own studio practice, Kate has pushed the boundaries of clay and works on large-scale projects that explore how the material can serve the community. She will be exhibiting at TEFAF 2025, with gallerist Adrian Sassoon.

Images courtesy of Adrian Sassoon, London. Photography by Sylvain Deleu.

How did you begin? 

As a 12-year-old ginger freckled girl standing on tiptoes, looking in through a ceramics studio window at my big government school, I was immediately transfixed by the Ceramics room. Clay on the ceiling, clay on the windows, shelves with clay work drying, and a very small room with labeled jars of powder on shelves and a strange metal box (the kiln), it immediately interested me. I wondered what it all was and was very keen when I finally had ‘Ceramics’ marked on my school timetable. 

It was an amazing time for the UK national curriculum in the 1970s, when metalwork, enamelling, woodwork, pottery, printing, sewing, cooking and art were all a good chunk of our timetable. Two hour sessions of art education were a weekly norm then. It is very different now, sadly. It's because of this experience and exposure of that my interest was sparked at a young age, it gave me a head start. Because my experience was so good, and because the education syllabus has squeezed these subjects mostly away from the school syllabus, I have co-founded the charity FiredUp4, the object being to place soft clay into young hands in after-school clubs around the UK.

How did you learn? 

My pleasure seeking with clay did not fade, it increased. School was followed by an Arts Foundation course and Bachelor of Arts, both at Bristol Polytechnic, and then my MA at the Royal College of Art in London. I finished my Ceramic education at age 27 having had seven wonderful hard working fulfilling years at art school. The Royal College of Art MA was invaluable in developing my skills, and this is where I started considering the way that clay can serve a community. It was the start of a community-minded philosophy that I have been developing ever since.

I work in three areas of the ceramic field, firstly, developing new ceramic glazes (I have a large glaze library with a very serious personal glaze recipe book), secondly, I work in my studio to make Decorative Art, and thirdly, I work on large scale public art projects for schools, libraries, hospitals and projects with renowned architects. I have completed perhaps 12 large projects to date. The largest, most recent project is a ceramic facade mechanically hung on a seven-storey building in Savile Row, London. It weighs 11 tonnes and has taken four years to complete with a team of skilled workers.

Image courtesy of Adrian Sassoon, London, photography by Alun Callender.

Who or what most inspires you?

I was lucky to have extraordinary inspiring teachers while I was at college. Mo Jupp, David Hamilton, George Rayner, Walter Keeler, Janice Tchalenko, Nick Homocky, Jill Crowley, to name a few. Artists Zandra Rhodes and Andrew Logan are both a huge inspiration to me. I became aware of their work when I finished college, and we have all become close friends. The commitment to their work is total, both are pure and essential artists, creative to the max and always generous to the world. Their sense of joy and color is unequalled; their spirit and dedication has been a huge inspiration.

The main inspiration for my own work is nature. The magic is all around us and I never take that for granted. Always marvelling at the color of an orange or the form of a blackberry or pineapple. I take inspiration from the energy and the 'life-force' within nature, this is echoed in my Atomic and Magma series that sit alongside my more figurative ceramic forms based on fruit vegetable seed and plant-forms.

I have travelled widely with my husband and daughter. Every year since we met 42 years ago, we have taken a chunk out of the winter calendar and travelled the world. The main country we have visited and keep returning to: India. We have visited some 30 times. I have always organised masterclasses, workshops and lectures wherever I go, reaching arms across the seas and meeting like-minded people within the ceramic field. Witnessing the extraordinary increase of interest in studio ceramics in India has been exciting. Having visited since the 80s, it's absolutely wonderful to see the transformation of the country, which has retained so much of his charm and spirit at the same time.

Images courtesy of Adrian Sassoon, London. Photography by Alun Callender.

What does a typical day look like?

I find that when I'm on intense making periods I fit a double day into one cycle of 24 hours. I start the working day at 10am, normally striding across the courtyard with a coffee and piece of toast, for a days' work with my two wonderful studio assistants, Kirsty and Louise. Listening to varied music and enjoying lunch together we finish this day at 6pm. Working in the studio, we can easily lose track of time and these moments are an absolute joy. We form bonds with people that we work alongside, difficult to describe the sense of pleasure and fulfilment that it gives, it is a natural flow when we all know the space and our needs so well. That ‘day’ done, after supper, I head back out to the studio to work between 9pm-2am. This way I get the efficient technical day with those extra pairs of hands, and then the quiet concentrated time to try and break new ground and play with ideas and enjoy the studio at night, often listening to an audio book. It works very well, I still get a good amount of sleep.

Then there are the exhibition days when I travel to International Art Fairs where Adrian Sassoon exhibits my work. Exchanging dungarees and t-shirts for my favorite dresses and clean shoes, these days are a sharp and exciting contrast. I have worked with Adrian Sassoon exclusively for nearly 30 years. A very special relationship, the length of time we have worked together together says it all. 

Where do you work?

In nearly 40 years of studio ceramic practice, with the exception of two years at the start in London and two years working in Barcelona, my studio has been either next-door to, or below our home. My daughter says she used to fall asleep to the clinking in on and off of the kiln electrics. Until recently the studio homes have been small compact and in urban places. My first studio was a tiny dark damp space in a railway arch next, then in bespoke studios in Hackney.

Next came a raw ‘touffe’ cave deep under our 15th century tall village home in Provence, then a stone basement in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, and now finally I work in a large space for the first time, on a beautiful courtyard across from our home, a Kent ‘longhouse' in the south-east of England. This home and studio that we moved into six years ago is a dream, I don't plan to ever move. It is the culmination of my husband and I working together with the same objective since we met in 1983.

A place or space that inspires you? 

Zandra Rhodes' penthouse above the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey London. We helped Zandra move into this building decades ago hoisting her beloved Camelias up onto the rooftop balconies. The color and objects therein are a dazzling fantasy. The famous round table of which Zandra so often speaks, with an inner circle of stones collected from around the world and a giant Tuliperie dressed with flowers.

We have been enjoyed so many dinners there with her and met a host of extraordinary creative people. Supper with Duggie Fields, Andrew Logan, Carol McNichol, Britt Eklund, the mayor of Delmar, Larry Hagman, Whitaker Maylem. It's never dull and Zandra's cooking is as wonderful as she is. This space and the people we met there have been an ongoing inspiration.

An object you'll never part with?

A whale's ear bone. It is the size of a hand. So heavy and solid and extraordinarily sculptural. It was given to me by a groundbreaking research doctor, sadly now deceased. A great friend, Deb Doniach, was lecturing in Iceland c.1950, and it was presented to her as a thank you. Deb gave it to me some 20 years ago as she knew I'd treasure it. When I show it to visitors, I ask them to identify it and the first answer is usually that it is a shell. It is so thick and heavy for a bone. I imagine this ear bone when the whale was alive and swimming in the ocean. It is very moving to hold it. I don't like to think of how it might have been originally acquired; I hope and sense it was from a whale that lived a good long life, which shows my optimistic nature.

Interview by Camilla Frances
Images from Alun Callender, Dan Fontanelli and Sylvain Deleu