Viv Lee & Jonathan Wade talk foraging & wild clay

Welcome to DES Talks, Design Exhibition Scotland’s lively exploration of making and creating. We talk ideas and inspiration, challenges and influences and of course the joy of creativity with artists, makers, designers and curators from across Scotland. 

In this episode Susanna meets makers Viv Lee and Jonathan Wade in their workshop within Glasgow Ceramic Studio. We talk about their recent residency at the Hugo Burge Foundation in the Scottish Borders where they collected wild clay and explored a landscape once farmed by the 18th century revolutionary thinker, James Hutton and author of the Theory of the Earth. We talk about their early years - Viv grew up in Hong Kong and was always happiest outdoors. Later she studied law in London and it was not until she studied at Glasgow School of Art in her thirties, that she first encountered clay. Whereas Jonathan who grew up in rural England encountered clay at an early age, thanks to an art teacher at school and went on to study at the Royal College of Art.

Both Viv and Jonathan talk about their own practices - Studio Viv Lee & Ingot Objects - but how collaborating together can unleash new possibilities and an exciting sense of adventure. This is the only the second time they have collaborated on a project, the first being for Bard, a craft gallery in Leith, Edinburgh a few years ago.

And we chat about their new work Earth Becoming. A series of wild clay lidded boxes and their delight in working closely with clay they have collected with their own hands. 

Earth Becoming is soon to be seen at Earth Matters, an exhibition curated by Susanna and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh which celebrates Hutton in the tercentenary year of his birth. Earth Matters at Inverleith House runs from 20 March to 1 November.

https://www.studiovivlee.com/
https://www.ingot-objects.com/

Thank you so much listening to DES Talks. Please do spread the word, share, subscribe and rate and rave! We really want to spread DES Talks far and wide. And don’t forget to explore our previous podcasts such as our conversation about the work of Donald Locke, the Guyanese artist who studied at Edinburgh College of Art in the 1960s or our exploration of Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine which is currently on at V&A Dundee or hear more about the life and fabulous outfits of textile designer, Bernat Klein who lived in the Scottish Borders. 

Huge thanks to musician Malin Lewis for Cycle Lane which accompanies DES Talks and Ryan Scott Media for production.