Photographs by Kevin Percival
An exhibition of Platters made in response to the RJ Lloyd collection of North Devon slipware pottery held within the ceramics gallery at the Burton museum, Bideford.
Drawn to the historic North Devonshire custom whereby one throws pottery shards at a person's door on shrove Tuesdays if they took a disliking to them, Florence embodied this act of throwing, pouring, chucking, dropping, spilling and crushing to create a series of platters; dishes for gathering, sharing and collecting. These have been made by utilising the leaf resist technique for decorating seen throughout the collection, whereby fresh leaves were pressed into the damp clay body before applying a contrasting layer of slip.
In much the same vein as the North Devon potters who would work quickly using whatever materials they had to hand, Florence has been working with discarded bits of paper, leaves, newspaper cut outs, found objects and paper collages created by the staff of The Burton museum (whilst running workshops earlier this year) and slip to create works that capture both fleeting and poignant autobiographical moments.