Cripps Pottery by Matt Cripps

Matt Cripps was born and raised in Miramichi, NB. He moved to Fredericton and completed a BA in fine arts at St. Thomas University. Following his undergrad, he began employment at Gallery 78 in Fredericton where he developed an appreciation for pottery and ceramics.

He then completed a two year diploma in Fine Craft: Ceramics at the New Brunswick College of Craft of Design (NBCCD) and a certificate in Advanced Studio Practice program at NBCCD.  He was the winner of the 2020 BMO First Art Award.

Artist Statement

Every piece I create is a journey. Each is like a mountain; I am unaware of what is above and the ledge is constantly evolving; this nourishes my creativity. I express passion and devotion through my work and understand the unique path that enables me to commit entirely to my craft. On crawling pottery: For this line of pottery, I’ve taken a characteristic of glazing that some people may think of as a flaw and have used it to my advantage. This characteristic is crawling. During the firing process, the glaze pulls together on itself as opposed to melting and forming a complete coating on the clay like most glazes. This crawling creates a network of random bare clay lines similar to the root network of a tree. Each piece has an organic, altered contour that is achieved by throwing the clay up to the approximate shape and then grabbing it and crushing it to create a natural form which is unique from piece to piece and fits perfectly in each individual’s hands. The irregularity of the form plays perfectly with the randomness of the crawl on each piece. Each piece is fired in a cone 6 electric kiln. The clay body used is a red stoneware mixture with a small amount of black iron oxide added. The black iron oxide gives the clay a richer dark red/brown colour. The rich colour of the clay in contrast with the lighter glaze colours makes the crawl networks pop and appear more striking.

- Matthew Cripps