Nicholas Lees

Ceramicist

©Coutesy of Nicholas Lees

When taking risks pays off

Nicholas makes lathe-turned ceramic sculptures
He undertook a research degree at the Royal College of Art
He won the Cersaie Prize at the Premio Faenza in 2015

Nicholas Lees was 13 when he first encountered clay thanks to a ceramicist neighbour. However, it wasn’t until his final years of boarding school that he became passionate about making, after a new pottery teacher got him "really hooked”, to the point where he was spending every weekend in the pottery room. Nevertheless, he initially went to university to study English and History, two other great passions, before pursuing a second degree in ceramics. Many years later, he still has the same love of ceramics as he did at school, enjoying the “meditative” process of spending hours in his studio making hand-thrown, lathe-turned ceramic sculptures so precise they almost appear machine-made.

Interview

What appeals about clay?: You can work with it in so many different states: as a liquid, as a really soft plastic solid, as a hard plastic solid, and even after it’s glazed and fired. It’s really rich in terms of the site of negotiation between maker and material and process.
Your sculptures don’t look handmade, but is it important they are?: Absolutely. People may assume it’s machine-made, and then discover that it is handmade – to me that’s a bit of magic. During my research at the Royal College of Art I quickly realised how much more profoundly I prefer making things to sitting in front of a computer!
What do you love most about making?: I enjoy the turning, which has a lot of risk. One piece could involve six hours on the lathe, with quite intense concentration, and you can’t make a mistake. People talk about the flow of making and I do experience that. It’s physically enjoyable, productive and has a lovely simplicity to it.
How does teaching at universities inform your practice?: It gets me out, socialising, talking to people, otherwise I spend all my time in my studio by myself. And it’s really helpful and productive for me, because I am talking to students, helping them understand what they are doing, and I can’t help but hear myself and think I should take my own advice!

Nicholas Lees is a master artisan: he began his career in 1992 and he started teaching in 1997