Connecting Lines

When Matt Grimmitt stands at the back window of his Victorian house, he can see the rise of Dumbleton Hill in the distance. Across the surrounding land and the village beyond lie traces of his family's legacy: fragments of pots made by an ancestor, and stories of a craft he has come to shape his life around.

“My great-great-grandfather made this,” Matt says, holding up a 27-inch-wide red earthenware bowl filled with logs for the wood burner. “This whole place is covered in pots. I live and breathe pottery.”

His great-great-grandfather was Elijah Comfort, one of the first two potters recruited at Winchcombe Pottery, which stands on the other side of Dumbleton Hill. The workshop was founded in 1920 by Michael Cardew, a student of renowned ceramicist Bernard Leach. “It was a country pottery, making everyday items for use in the home. The people who did these jobs were incredibly skilled,” Matt explains. An appreciation for the region's craft came as naturally as the clay itself, formed through decades of living in its midst. “I've got a really strong connection to where I'm from and my place in this landscape.” 

Matt’s interest in ceramics grew as enthusiasm for his office work waned, so his wife enrolled him in an evening pottery class. Something locked into place when he experienced the rhythm of the wheel. Carried along by the transformation of raw material into familiar, functional forms – he was enthralled. “Throwing has always been the magical thing for me; it’s a feeling I’ve continued to chase after all of these years. I'm always looking for a good pot.”

Simultaneously, he set out on a personal treasure hunt, of sorts, searching the UK for pots made by Elijah Comfort to gift his grandmother. One seller, a potter in Devon, invited him to visit his workshop. “I walked in, and everything about it felt like home. It’s like I came upon exactly what I should be doing.” This encounter marked the first of many acts of generosity – moments of shared skills, stories and experience – that have accompanied Matt's immersion into the craft. The ceramics world, he reflects, is “a community in the truest sense of the word.”

Throughout the next few years, Matt honed his skills with clay at the kitchen counter, then his garden shed, before graduating to a large space in a local warehouse. The potter he befriended in Devon called him up one day, sharing the news that the then-head of Winchcombe Pottery, Ray Finch, had passed away, leaving his son Mike at the helm. Many of the staff had left, anxious about the pottery’s future. “I knew Mike, so I expressed interest. He told me to bring some pots over for him to look at. I was so nervous – these people were my heroes.”

Though the work samples he presented were “pulled apart” by Mike, a “tough critic”, Matt was offered a part-time job. The team was small but determined; near-strangers tasked with keeping a vulnerable yet cherished business afloat. Matt understood from the beginning that standards were high, and production fast-paced – anecdotes his grandmother shared over the years had stood him in good stead. “Mike could see something in me, so he allowed me to make mistakes. But I wanted to do it justice – it was a weight that was worth carrying.”

Over time, the business turned a corner. Leaky windows were replaced, tired equipment was upgraded, and long-formed habits were gradually overhauled. Matt rose through the ranks and spent eight years as the manager of Winchcombe. But as his role moved further from the wheel, he felt a pull back to the craft itself: the tactile feeling of sinking hands into clay, of trailing organic lines across leather-hard stoneware. “Really, I wanted to make slipware. It's in my heart, and I wanted to go back to it.”

With slipware pottery, the piece is decorated with liquid clay before it goes into the kiln. While Winchombe originally produced earthenware slipware, it transitioned to wood-fired stoneware in the 1960s. Now two years into running his own practice, Matt has embraced the traditional technique, and much of his tableware features loose, meandering lines formed using a pottery comb. “It's a pattern as old as time. You can see it on vessels from a thousand years ago.” The direction of the line comes intuitively, like swiping one’s fingers through the dust on a car bonnet or across warm sand on the beach. “We all leave marks behind,” Matt observes. “Mark-making is a very human thing to do.”

As we speak, ceramic shards collect on Matt’s table, set down after he has held them to the camera. Once bowls or plates, they were broken and returned to the earth decades ago, only to be rediscovered by a hawk-eyed resident on a morning dog walk. “This one is probably from the late 1800s – this one I dug up from the field behind my house. Then the tractors come out, and the plough sometimes pulls things up.” The bookshelves behind him are lined with vessels of all shapes and sizes, and he sips from a mug made by fellow TOAST potter Jenny Hall.

When Matt says he lives and breathes pottery, it is expressed with wholehearted gratitude. “It's my job, but it's not a job. I've found the thing that I'm supposed to be doing, as far as I'm concerned. I'm so lucky.”

Words by Bébhinn Campbell.

Photography by Aloha Bonser-Shaw.