The Tulipware Range - FOUR SOLD - new pieces arriving regularly
By Wendy Farnham
Original artworks
English slipware-style Wiltshire Earthenware - unique, handmade, slip-glazed and clear-sealed
Various sizes
£155 - £235 each
In order as pictured above:
Slender Mantel Vessel (first pic) - £185 - SOLD
Shallow Dish in turquoise and peach - £155
Large Platter with Thrown Handles - £185 - SOLD
Large dish - olive greens - £175
Medium shallow dish - ochre - £155
Triangular Solo Tulip dish - £60 - SOLD
Small Tulip duo linear dish - £55 - SOLD
Slender Mantel Vessel - turquoise and sage - £180
Slender Mnatel Vessel - ochre and beige - £180
Wiltshire ceramicist, Wendy Farnham, created this Tulipware range exclusively for this gallery in summer, 2024. It is growing and taking on new forms as we enter the autumn and winter.
Each unique piece is handmade in white earthenware with slip decoration in the 18th Century English style. There's also a reverent nod to William Morris in the floral patterns, adapted from Arts & Crafts motifs.
The result is an extraordinary, eye-catching range of ceramics that combine traditional skills with Wendy's design flair. Each piece is a one-off in form and decoration.
Wendy works primarily in white earthenware decorated in slips and clear-glaze-sealed. Her variety of mark making - almost a visual language that she has developed - includes sgraffito and slip trailing, which creates a sort of embossed effect.
She pinches small pieces of clay to produce the walls of her pieces, often grading them to fine, porcelain-like edges, and creating a characteristic dimpled effect which she then emphasises with the shiney transparent glaze. Her love of colour and pattern is very evident.
ABOUT WENDY FARNHAM
Before becoming a mum, Wendy worked as a primary school teacher. Later, she took an Access/Foundation Art Course at Swindon College where she pursued her life-long passion for working with clay.
She went on to gain a BA Honours Degree in Three-Dimensional Design (Ceramics) from Bath Spa University, where she benefitted from first class teaching by Felicity Aylieff, Takeshi Yasuda and Philip Wood, among others. Wood taught her slip and glaze making which greatly inform her current and new work.
After her degree she was selected for and exhibited at New Designers, Islington, London. She has shown at Swindon Museum and The Toll House Gallery, Lechlade.
Wendy is married to Neil and has three grown-up children.