Making, Choosing, Discovering

I’m Igor Krol, a largely self-taught potter working between Rochester Square in Camden, London, and my studio in south-west France.

Making things goes back rather further for me than ceramics. From the age of eight to fifteen I studied drawing and painting at evening art school, preparing for what might have become an artistic education. At sixteen, however, with the evil Eurasian empire collapsing around me, I chose a very different path and eventually a very different career.

Nearly thirty years later, I found clay. My first throw came out surprisingly well and I was captivated. Returning to making with my hands after such a long absence was profoundly liberating. It felt less like discovering something new than recovering something I had left behind at sixteen.

I have since learned from a number of generous and gentle throwers along the way, but mostly through making, observation, failure and spending a great deal of time with clay.

What drives my practice most is form. I mostly throw, sometimes combining it with hand-building, and rarely begin with a finished shape in mind. The amount of clay suggests a scale; from there, the form emerges through the material, mood, judgement and whatever else enters the equation. Where the shapes themselves come from is a longer story.

Different clays, handmade glazes, kiln atmosphere and firing schedules introduce uncertainty, and I tend to prefer unfamiliar territory to repeating what I already know will work. Once I get close to what I consider very good, I’m often more tempted by the next challenge than by perfecting the last few per cent.

The finished pot is therefore intentional and accidental, physical and intellectual, disciplined and haphazard. Each piece is a record of that encounter rather than an attempt to satisfy someone else’s idea of a perfect pot.

People seek belonging through heritage, history, religion or tribe. For me, being connected to people who have made clay pots for thousands of years is good enough. Taking earth and making something useful, heartwarming and aesthetically pleasing is one of those basic human activities that connects us across time.

Ceramics also intersects with my other interests in philosophy and ethics, history, culture, engineering and the theory of art. But the traffic goes both ways. Working with clay gives me another way of thinking about beauty and imperfection, intention and accident, control and uncertainty, utility and art, tradition and originality. It also satisfies something more basic: the pleasure of understanding how materials behave and making things work.

Nearly ten years into my love affair with ceramics, what surprises me most is how little I feel I have exhausted it. It has already taken me on an extraordinary journey, yet there is still so much to explore, learn and experience.

It is not a pursuit of immediate satisfaction. Much of it is solitary, slow and uncertain. You make choices, and sometimes the clay, glaze and fire make choices for you. Perhaps the possibility of discovering something I do not yet know how to make, or even know exists, is part of what makes the journey worthwhile. And, in a small way, life too.

New pieces appear on Instagram. Separately, I think and write about the ethics and philosophy of AI on Substack.

Interested in a piece? Email me at [email protected] or send a message on Instagram.