Tam Frishberg

I spent most of my working life as a teacher and started doing pottery seriously after taking early retirement. I took several short courses in throwing and attended Bucks and Chilterns University College on an ad hoc basis for several years, studying glaze-making and extending my throwing skills.

All of my pieces are made on the wheel using stoneware clay. My work is functional, and I get great pleasure from the idea that people are using what I have made.

Line and shape are central when I create a piece, so I tend to keep decoration to a minimum.  People often comment on the quietness and “Japanese feel” of my work—something I suppose that comes of growing up in a very rural part of northern California next to the sea.

Some of my work is inspired by often quite old vessels in a variety of materials that I have seen in museums.  Other shapes emerge in a more spontaneous interaction between wheel, hands and clay.

I regularly take part in Oxfordshire Artweeks and in exhibitions run by the Oxfordshire Craft Guild of which I am a member.  Other venues have included the Wiseman Gallery, Summertown, Antiques on High in Oxford, Bell Fine Arts and the Contemporary Craft and Design Fair, Winchester. I welcome visitors to my home studio in Oxford.