Hon. President:- Joe Finch

Hon. Member:- Henry Sandon

Elizabeth Michl

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After training in Art and Design at Stafford College, specialising in ceramics, Elizabeth worked at a studio near York and then in North Wales as a production thrower. Later in her career she qualified as a teacher and taught ceramics in a comprehensive school and at adult evening classes. During this time she developed ceramic courses and worked as a national examiner, moderating art examinations in schools across the country. At the same time she set up her own studio at home and made and sold domestic ware.

On taking early retirement, she began to explore low tech firing. She travelled to the U.S.A. where she developed her own smoke firing techniques at the University of Arizona. She learned about pit firing on a course run by Ray Rogers, from Australia. She has since returned to the U.S.A. to teach and demonstrate her work, which has been on sale at exhibitions and in galleries both in the U.K. and the U.S.A. Her work is in private collections, here and in Europe.

“The processes I use are illustrated in the books, A Potter’s Guide to Ceramic Surfaces by Jo Connell (published 2002), and The Potter’s Encyclopaedia of Colour, Form and Decoration (published 2003). I am currently experimenting with a new gas kiln in which work is fired within saggars, simulating pit-firing effects.

She has been a committee member of the MPA for over ten years and was Chairman from 2003—2008.