Daisy Eltenton

Please share a bit about yourself and your background.

I am fascinated by the endless possibilities of clay and I love making objects people use in their daily lives as well as exploring the vast array of possible textures and forms of decorative pieces. I was born in Lisbon to British parents, and grew up attending French school, a mixture of cultures that I feel greatly influences my work and myself as a person. As a teenager, I was very interested in arts, doodling during classes and always carrying a film camera with me, and so I decided to do an art foundation in Cardiff, Wales. After this, I stayed in Cardiff to pursue a degree in art and design. I had enjoyed playing around with clay during my art foundation, but it was only in the second year of my degree that I was sure ceramics was the medium I was most comfortable expressing myself in. Since finishing my degree I have returned to Portugal, concentrating on ceramics full-time. I swapped the city for the countryside and alongside producing my own work in my studio, I am the ceramics technician at a local artist residency studio (Aviário Studio) where I am able to put my knowledge to the test everyday, both supporting and learning from visiting artists.

Given your foundation in photography and drawing, how does this background influence your perspective on ceramics?

I think I am very observant, which is why I was drawn to photography - it was a way of showing people how I saw the world, or showcasing little details that might otherwise go overlooked. And I feel like I have a strong aesthetic sense of what works in design, so being able to step out from behind the lens, and create something that my younger self would have been intrigued to photograph or draw is something that really captivates me. 

What first drew you to ceramics, and how did this medium become central to your creative expression?

I was on a gap year before my higher education studies, and saw a little 2 months ceramics course advertised and decided to try it. I’d never thought of the medium in the past, and didn’t really know what I was getting into, but I immediately loved it and would take a little bit of clay with me after class to keep playing with and forming until it would go hard and unusable (I didn’t know about reclaim at the time). It was something that felt right, and during my studies I tried woodwork, jewellery making, plaster carving, and all sorts of other mediums, but clay was always the one I would want to spend most of my time doing, and I would draw endless variations of pots and pieces that I wanted to try and make. I think the malleability of clay allows for such a vast breadth of possibilities, there is always something new to create, how could you not love it? 

Can you take us through your creative process—your favourite part, and how you find balance with clay’s unpredictable nature while learning to let go of expectations?

I usually have a vision in my head for a particular piece, so I will draw it out and figure out the proportions before starting to make it. I tend to use a lot of slabs and coils and I build them up to try and recreate the vision I had (recently I’ve also been experimenting with forms on the wheel). Sometimes a two dimensional form doesn’t quite render itself to three dimensions, so it’s quite tricky when there’s a shape that I really want to develop but can’t seem to get right. And then there’s the kiln… I always fire my pieces slowly and allow them to dry fully, so I’ve been lucky to not have very many disasters, but at times when using a new variety of clay I struggle with warpage or cracks - so there’s a lot of managing expectations, and only allowing myself to get really excited about a piece after it’s had it’s final glaze firing! I also make my glazes myself, so there’s a lot of trial and error involved in that part of the process, but I find it so special that I am able to say there will be no other piece like the ones I make, they are truly unique and my own. 

We know that you run ceramics workshops. Could you tell us more about your workshops, including your teaching approach and what initially inspired you to teach?

I’ve been teaching ceramics for about 4 years now, and I love seeing the participants’ creativity. It started off as a way for me to fire my kiln more often and to allow more frequent experiments with glazes as I didn’t have to fill the kiln with just my work (my kiln is quite big and I’d often take a couple of months to fill it). But it soon became something that I really enjoy doing and look forward to; I love seeing how people of all ages approach the material. As I mentioned above, the possibilities are endless, so it’s wonderful to see the seemingly infinite ways people will interpret something as simple as making a mug, for example. I take quite a laid-back approach, and let the students decide what they want to make once I’ve explained the basic “rules” and particularities of clay, with some workshops focussing on specific techniques and others on particular outcomes. I find this is the best way to do it, and it often leads to new ideas for me and my own work!

Looking at the contemporary craft landscape, where do you see the greatest opportunities for preserving and reinterpreting important local traditions?

I was recently invited by the wonderful curator Felipa Almeida to make my own take on an alentejano ‘Moringue’ for an exhibition which included 27 artist’s interpretations of the traditional functional vessel of the XIXth and XXth century for carrying water. Ceramics is steeped in rich history, and modern forms are the result of reapproaching traditional and familiar pieces, so recognising and re-interpreting these is a big part of my work. I started my ceramics journey by looking at ancient greek amphoras and indigenous south american forms, and would take parts of these into my own work. Where I live, in central Portugal, there is a great ceramics tradition and I’ve learned from some specialists who have mastered particular techniques, from tile decoration to hand building giant terracotta pots. As a result, I have been inspired to attempt bigger forms, adapting them to my aesthetic and using my preferred types of clay and glazes, but recognising the lineage and the ground I share with generations of ceramicists, whose work was honed over time to meet specific needs.

Are there any new projects, themes, or directions you are currently exploring that feel particularly connected to your practice?

I’ve recently been looking into decay, and deconstruction of materials and pieces and trying to tie in the wear and tear that life brings to the objects around us into my pieces. I’d love to think of archeologists in hundreds of years unearthing one of my pieces, and not having a clue where it’s from, or when it was made. So I’ve been constructing a “perfect” piece, and then tearing bits up, adding bits of rock, or clay to emulate how moss will grow on a tree, or coral will form on a shipwreck. I’ve also been a lot more free with my glaze application, layering colours and textures, and playing around with these to create interesting colour palettes and variations that remind me of the sea, or rusting metals - mirroring the unpredictability of the organic natural processes within a discipline that many often experience solely adhering to strict forms, in, for instance, modern mass produced tableware. 

How can people engage more closely with your work, whether through your pieces, exhibitions, or online presence?

If you are ever in central Portugal, more specifically Tomar, do feel free to get in touch to visit my studio and have a chat about my work! I also have an exhibition that will be on until the end of December with eight statement pieces that are a real showcase of the new direction I’m taking my work in. The exhibition is called “Sítios do Barro” and is in the Levada in Tomar. I also have my instagram page (@daisyeltenton.ceramics), and website (www.daisyeltenton.com) both of which I try to keep up to date, posting new pieces and experiments. On my website there is a link to a newsletter that you can join, don’t worry about being bombarded with information - I only send them out when I have fun things happening like exhibitions, or new collections in my online shop. 

Photo [1, 2] by Luisa Bravo, [5] by Juliette Whittingslow, and the rest by Daisy.