Page 51 - ClayCraft - Issue 35 (January 2020)

KEITH BRYMER JONES

breakfast with the head of Love
Productions and mentioned the video. He
watched it back at his hotel, and phoned me
up to ask if I wanted to be a judge on this
new programme he was putting together,”
explained Keith.
Keith was adamant that he didn’t want to
be involved with something where the
contestants are set up to be broken down.
Love Productions assured him it would be
a proper programme, promoting crafts, so
he agreed, and the rest is history.
Following the success of the first two
series, this third series is longer, with 10
episodes (Series 1 had six and Series 2 was
The sgra to range for Heal’s that eight) and features 12 potters as opposed to
kick-started Keith’s production career.
10. Some of the projects push the envelope
and are a big ask, which will make great
with some photos of a sgraffito range that loved my Word range and said it was very viewing. Rich Miller has a great team
I’d made. I showed them to the buyer at scalable. He’d just come back from China, dealing with the technical side of things,
Heal’s and she asked if I could make 200 – and within two weeks I was on a plane to and the production team is now much more
‘by next week’. I delivered, they sold well China, visiting factories that he’d found. I’d used to how the whole things works in
and the next order was for 400. It became a been looking into mass production anyway, terms of firing schedules etc.
bit of a game; she’d ask for 600, then 1,200, because with the kind of volume I was “What’s been interesting about the
and it was fine because I’d had this producing, and in that market, the pricing programme is to watch the thought process
traditional training and could deliver in was getting tricky. We formed MAKE of each individual potter and the way they
volume. International. construct their design concept for the task.
“The largest order I ever made was “It’s the same thing that I do, but on a There’s a lot of personal, emotional stuff
16,000 pieces for Habitat, which took about bigger scale. I hand-make and design each that comes through,” said Keith.
three months. I’d been working with them, prototype, go to China to block and case it, “In the first series they were allowed to
designing various ranges, and then I or get it ready for jiggers or moulding, and I choose whatever clay they wanted for each .
developed a breakfast range called the work in the factory, on the floor, and we get
Brooks range, and it was put up for the it up to mass production. A lot of the
merchandisers to see if they wanted it. equipment used in the mass production
Their head of development came out of the originated from Stoke, bought when factories
meeting laughing, and I asked if they’d there closed down. China still has the skill
gone for it. He said, ‘Have they! Have you sets that are gradually being lost over here.
seen the numbers?’ I got back to the They’ve never stopped using them.”
workshop and the fax machine was spitting Having investigated the possibility of
out reams of orders for their various shops. relocating his production to a factory in
“I’d get on the wheel at 5.30am and Stoke (the red tape proved insurmountable),
throw. By the time the others came in at Keith is trying to bring at least some of the
9am, I’d have made 300-400 pieces, and I’d production back to the city and is talking
manage 800-1000 mugs a day. By then I to some of the big companies about
had five or six people working for me; a working with them.
couple of girls just packing boxes, a guy
preparing the clay, and I used to sit at the The Great Pottery Throw
wheel all day, turning the work out, like a Down – more potters,
machine. bigger challenges
“Back in 2014, Dom and I did some
Going large promotional videos for Make International,
“I was there for 15-17 years, then moved and the Adele ‘Rolling in the deep’ spoof
down here [to Whitstable]. By this time I went viral. At the time, we were working
was doing trade fairs and in 2006/2007 I with the owner of a chain of stores in  Originally part of an art
met my business partner Dom. He said he America. She happened to be having installation, this is ‘Exhibit A’!
Issue 35 ClayCraft 51