Creative Caversham – Ally Evans

Life lesson out of clay

ALLY EVANS has a busy job as a primary school teacher in Caversham, but she always manages to keep one day a week for her ‘brain space’ – time when she can just focus on being creative and forget the outside world. “Teaching can be stressful, so the time I set aside for pottery is sacred,” she told me. “It’s a time when I can be in the moment, focused completely on what I am trying to do.”

With parents who both enjoyed creative hobbies, Ally was always keen to find something to suit herself. An opportunity to ‘have a go’ at pottery at South Hill Park in Bracknell around 25 years ago provided the chance. “A young artist in residence was in the studio, and he asked me what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to throw a pot… he told me it was too difficult to achieve this in one session. I wasn’t put off! I started in September and went back, week after week. At first, I didn’t really produce much, but I kept at it.

“By Christmas I had made a couple of cups, one for me and one for my husband. To this day, I use this same cup (slightly chipped but still going strong) every morning for my ritual first cup of tea of the day!”

Fired up by enthusiasm for pottery, Ally bought a potter’s wheel and a kiln, although once her three children came along (as well as returning to work as a teacher) there was little time for pottery. However, getting Covid provided the impetus to rekindle her interest. “My doctor suggested I needed to take up a hobby during my recovery, so I asked my husband to retrieve the kiln and the wheel from our garage. And I haven’t stopped since…”

In fact, Ally feels she can’t imagine being without it – “Everyone needs a creative outlet,” she recommends. “I really like making things. As they say, the more you work at it, it’s how you get good at it. Nowadays, when I am not at my teaching job, I’m at home making something.”

Initially Ally began making items for friends. “People would come round for a cup of tea and ask where I got my mugs from, and when I told them I made them, they began commissioning me for items they wanted to give as presents. Then I began selling my pottery at Christmas fairs in both Henley and Reading, as well as during Caversham Arts Trail. I love doing it… I’d describe it now as an out-of-control hobby!

“When I’m at home I think to myself should I be changing the sheets, or shall I make a cup today? However, I probably wouldn’t want to do this as a fulltime business. I can’t imagine having to make so many cups per day to fulfil an order. I like the fact that I can think to myself, what do I fancy making today?

“It does take over, though. We went on holiday to Marrakesh, and I spent all my time in the souks looking at all the pottery. It’s a never-ending interest, you’re never finished, I don’t think I will ever stop learning!”

Ally has recently been experimenting with making butter dishes in porcelain, as well as occasionally trying the ‘raku’ method of firing pottery which can create very dramatic effects, in her homemade raku kiln. “With pottery you never quite know what you’re going to get – and sometimes it turns out better than you imagined, while other times it can be a disaster. But you need to accept that if it goes wrong, it’s not a failure. Doing pottery is actually a very good life lesson. “People don’t realise how long it takes to create each item. It can take two weeks to complete making a cup, so I have to be very careful not to over-commit myself. Speed kills, you can never rush the process. It is a hobby which requires both patience as well as accepting the inevitable disasters. You learn a lot of resilience.”

Ally ensures that she re-uses any scraps: “I recycle everything,” she says. And while her pottery is undoubtedly beautiful to look at it is also functional and practical. “I really like making useful things – cups, jugs, serving dishes, lemon juicers. Everything is made to be used.”

Ally sources her materials from the potter’s supplies Bluematchbox, at Grazeley. “We are so lucky to have this nearby. I am experimenting with finer types of pottery such as porcelain, so I can collect the clay from them – and they are great at offering advice. I am also trying out a speckled clay – I do like to try different things.” And while her pottery teacher once demonstrated how he could make a cup from the clay he dug from his own garden, Ally hasn’t yet done the same. But making something both practical and beautiful from such a simple basic ingredient – clay – means so much to her. “It’s turning clay from ‘nothing’ into ‘something’.”