Loraine Rutt

Globe maker

©Gareth Sambidge

A world of ceramics and cartography

Loraine is a London based globe-making ceramicist
Her specialty is creating clay globes
She puts focus on our impact on the planet

Loraine Rutt is a ceramicist specialising in cartography. Her creations are globes and maps of all shapes and sizes made from clay. Loraine became an apprentice cartographer at the age of 16 and worked for eight years at London University, drawing maps for research papers and teaching aids. She gained an understanding of maps that set her up for the rest of her professional life. She then went on to study ceramics at Central Saint Martins and has been practising ceramics professionally since 1989 in her studio. Loraine makes pocket globes from the abundant resource that is clay. In her creations she draw attention to the impact that humans have on the planet. Each tiny globe is a tangible reminder of how we interact with Earth, in a form that suggests the familiarity of holding a pebble in one's hand.

Interview

©Taran Wilkhu

How did you become a cartographer?: I have always loved maps, so when I saw an advert for an apprenticeship at Birkbeck College, I jumped at the chance. To me, they have always meant adventure and exploration. My favourite map drawn at Birkbeck was a contour map of London. We normally map the city by the built environment, so it was interesting to see a map that revealed the shape of the landscape beneath the city.
After becoming a ceramicist, how did you find your theme?: With the idea of the pocket globe, I realised I could practise ceramics with a cartographer’s exactitude. At that point everything suddenly made sense. There is nothing I Iove more than exploring clay in the studio. It is a physical connection with the Earth's surface, so it seemed fitting to make representations of place with this naturally abundant and malleable material.
Why do you work with clay, not paper?: It boils down to the fact that I love clay. Paper globes are beautiful, I do make those as well, but they are incredibly fragile and need preserving. Clay globes are robust. If you bury them in the ground for two thousand years, the colour will still be there.
How do you balance accuracy and creativity?: Cartography is always a balance. Unless you make a map at a scale of one to one and include everything, there is always a bias depending on what the map is for. No maps are completely true. So I try to draw focus to one particular theme.

Loraine Rutt is an expert artisan: she began her career in 1990