British Ceramics Biennial 2025:
Slip Tales – The Dinner Party
6th September – 19th October 2025 – Spode Works, Church Street, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 1BU
Slip Tales is an exploration and appreciation of the history and heritage of Staffordshire slipware. This was a project that I led, delivering workshops to mixed community groups with the aim of connecting them with the history of Staffordshire. We looked at large celebratory plates and slipware from The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, and the narratives entailed in the works of the Toft brothers and others. We used contemporary colourful slips to create pieces of tableware for a dinner party. While making we focused on personal narratives and tales, using the clay as a canvas for telling a story. The Dinner Party is a place of hope, as art and food can transcend barriers. The Slip Tales Dinner Partycelebrates the bringing together of cultural differences and similarities in eating and food sharing traditions from around the world.
A small selection these works will be on display in the British Ceramics Biennial. For more information please click here.
Further Information about Slip Tales
The inspiration for the working method and historical context of the series of Slip Tales workshops is Staffordshire Slipware. For this I have put together a series of slides of photos taken from the collection in Hanley Museum. I was particularly interested in the large celebratory plates by the brothers Thomas and Ralph Toft, and Samuel Malkin, as a vehicle or a canvas for telling a narrative. I envisage using the plates as a canvas for telling a story with a personal narrative that connects with the individual participants.
I have also used the model of The Dinner Party, by Judy Chicago. This was a large dinner table installation. Her intention was to create ‘a reinterpretation of the Last Supper from the point of view of those who had done the cooking throughout history.’ She wanted to celebrate women’s history. In this Slip Tales Dinner Party we are focusing on drawing on personal narratives and tales, bringing together the cultural differences and similarities in eating and food sharing traditions from around the world. This is to be created using the techniques of Staffordshire Slipware. The Dinner Party installation, a large dinner party for the final exhibition piece, is a means of bringing together the work of the four separate community workshop groups in Stoke-on-Trent.
Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party ‘reminds us that the history of Western civilisation … has failed to represent the experiences of half of the human race. But The Dinner Party is also full of hope – for Judy Chicago believes that art can transcend the barriers between us.’ It is my hope that we can create such a dinner party that brings people and narratives together.
The detailed breakdown for each group to be added later. I need to consider transportation issues, scale and storage issues for work which is slip-decorated, and will be wet at the end of each session.
In each of the workshops there may be some trial flat pieces which can be cut into tiles. JC’s Dinner Party sits on on a tiled floor. These tiles can also be used on the dinner table as additional coasters, or on the floor.
Depending on timing, the work will be glazed using a clear glaze, possibly in the final workshop.
The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, March 1 – May 26 1985, London. p2 Welcome to the Dinner Party
Other Community Projects
Over the years I have run a number of different community art projects. Some of these are clay-based projects but I have also undertaken textile-based projects. These have been to a wide range of age ranges and communities with different requirements. Often I take the clay to their community base and bring work back to my workshop to fire in my kiln.
