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Adrienne's CV


 Adrienne Crowe: potter
Adrienne has a feeling for clay, the pure joy of making pots.
Her pots are unique, delightfully functional, and beg to be used.
 
“My deepest need is to be making, transforming… be it onion soup, a garden or pots.
Ideally, I like to do them all and more, each day… and yoga to ease my muscles out.
“Most of all I love to feel the slippery clay between my fingers: to experience the contrast
between the formless mud, the dull drynessof the glaze and, in time, to share the
experience of the finished piece – a vessel, that expresses fullness: to create a piece
that implores one to reach out and touch its contrasting colours, to stroke textures that
look smooth but aren’t, and the ones that are, but don’t seem to be.
“I adore the beauty of happenstance – of putting the pieces into the kiln, not quite sure
what the fire might do. To challenge the alchemy of techniques, to let the fire take its turn,
carrying to completion, beyond my control… when the kiln is opened, it’s better than
Christmas. There is only so much that I want to control – deeply I desire the unexpected.
“Oh, I can ape industry, control the whole process and make clones. In the past I did
nothing else. For years I made a machine of myself. Truly, machines are much better at
being machines than I am. For me production got dry, as dry as a desert. I lost the joy.
I almost lost the plot.
“Naturally, I still can do repetition for restaurants or corporate gifts.
“Given the choice, each of my pots expresses the mood of the moment. For me a set of dishes
should share many characteristics that draw them together, like sisters can look so similar,
yet each can be identified by quirks that set them apart. Do we want all our friends to look
identical? Your daily crocks are your familiar, comforting pals. Who doesn’t have a favourite
bowl or mug…the porridge / coffee irrationally tastes better… What is adding value?
What is it that tweaks
your hand to select that one on the shelf? How boring to have presses full of clones.
 “I am a passionate woman, moody, exotic, quixotic, like the Irish weather I am all seasons
in a day, an hour even… and I need to have my pots express the moods of the moment,
and then speak forever of the freedom to ‘be’, of joy in being, of the need to be in service,
of use, useful… beautifully useful, to re-ignite the palate of a jaded consumer – to spark
the passion for the fragile, the unique expression of function… Break it and it is gone forever….
Treat it with respect and it will serve you for its lifetime, gathering a patina of memories
and attachment.”
 
Adrienne is descended from the Leech tradition through Helena Brennan.
40 years exploring clay has taken Adrienne through years as an exhibitor of conceptual art,
into wholesale production pottery, and out again into a more creative phase.
Available for unique functional ware, corporate gifts, and customised tableware,
she currently creates as inspiration leads.
Three times a year Adrienne welcomes a small class (6) into her studio for a “Clay Day Play Day”.
This is a workshop where grown-ups can explore clayand creative empowerment,
under expert assistance and guidance with the challenges of both the medium and the
 ancillary emotional issues.
She is available to give pottery demonstrations such as “How to Make a Teapot” to
community groups such as Active Aged.

She is a passionate and inspiring teacher. 

Registered craftworker with Crafts Council of Ireland www.ccoi.ie 
 
Experience
·      Born 1956
·      Leaving Cert (Hons Art, Geography, Biology, English) ’74
·      TCD two years General Studies (incomplete) ’75, ’6
·      Classes with Helena and Peter Brennan two years ’76 ’77
·      Taggs Yard summer school ’77
·      Glit HF, Iceland, designer / thrower for six months ’81
·      Vic Greenaway , Australia, all pottery skills, six months ’82
·      Editor “The Potter” magazine for the Craft Potters Society of Ireland, ’76 - ’81
·      Art teacher The High School, ’76 - ’7
·      Art Teacher Sandford National School, ’77 - ’81
·      Music teacher Newpark Night School ’76 - ’81
·      Toastmasters International; President ’96 /7 & '03 – 04; DTM '08
·      Pottery Skills Course, NIHE, Limerick ’80/1
-     Correspondent on Crafts for Farmers Journal 1990 / 2
·      Reflexology Practitioner ’92
·      Shiatsu Practitioner ’93
·      Business Enterprise Course ’97/8
·      Artist in Schools Scheme ’92
·    Irish Yoga Association Teacher Training '02
 
Exhibitions
·      1978 Kilakee Gallery group show, Co Dublin
·      1979 Davis Gallery group show, Dublin
·      1980 7th International Biennial of Ceramic Art, Vallauris, France
·      1980 “Ceramics with Silks” Trinity Arts Gallery, Dublin
·      1981 “Icelandic Rock Forms” Blomaval, Reykjavik, Iceland
·      1982 “Forms for Flowers” Donaaghmede Mall, Dublin
·      1982 8th International Biennial of Ceramic Art, Vallauris, France
·      1982 “Rockforms” Tulfaris Gallery, Co Wicklow
·      1982 “Landforms” Irish Embassy, Canberra, Australia
·      1983 “Landforms” Ballsbridge Gallery, Dublin
·      1983 “Estuary Bowls” Delegates Exhibition, World Crafts Council, Dublin
·      1985 International Ceramics Exhibition, Taipei, Taiwan (permanent collection)
·      1986 “Landforms; Giants Causeway Theme” New Brunswick, USA
·      1986 “Landforms; Giants Causeway Theme” Wexford Opera Festival Fringe
·      Annual exhibitor with Craft Potters Society of Ireland until 1986
·      CCI Trade Fair annually until 1978 - 1990
·      2006 &'08 Ceramics Ireland exhibition Ardgillen 
     2008 "Fit for Service" recent bowls: Seraph.ie
 Other activities
·      Mug Marathon 1,000 mugs made in one marathon event in aid of St Michael’s House 1984 and in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind 1983
·      Demonstrations of potters skills to retirement groups and young people
·      Art in Action pottery demonstrations
·      Artist in schools scheme and in Douglas Hyde Gallery
Adrienne / Rath Pottery / Kelly Green has supported the arts by supplying props for numerous
theatrical performances including plays presented at the Abbey, Peacock, Gaiety, Gate and other
theatres and operas. The studio has assisted at Art in Action 1994 - 1997
 
Trading history
1978 began trading as Rath Pottery
1981 registered as Rath Pottery Ltd. to comply with IDA grant aid requirements;
received grants for kiln 1981, travel 1982 and premises 1983
1983 moved to present address and opened craft retail entity Kelly Green
Employed staff 1986 – 1997
2004 ceased trading as Rath Pottery Ltd. voluntary liquidation to release audit requirements
and to streamline current business strategy.
Currently trading under personal name and seraph.ie with a makers mark of an angel.

 

E info@seraph.ie    T 353 1 453 9971   seraph.ie, 15 Heytesbury Street, Dublin 8 (map)

Last updated 03.04.17

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Exhibition of bowls 2008