Together_by Nature – Botanical Potter New Maker of the Year at Great Dixter
If any potter has caught the zeitgeist of the moment it is Forest Tozer of http://www.togetherbynature.co.uk @Together_bynature. Recently appointed New Maker of the Year at Great Dixter she creates beautiful plates, bowls, butter and soap dishes and candlesticks all imprinted with leaves and flowers she has gathered by hand. Even her name is nominative determinative ‘Forest’. ‘My mum went to the Amazon and was set on calling me ‘Forest’ adding my father wanted to call me Harriet’.
Forest makes both thrown and hand built pieces often with clay she has found either in her garden or near her workshop located in the ravishing Wye Downs above Ashford, Kent. ‘I love finding my own clay. I let it dry before breaking it into little pieces with a rolling pin. Next I sieve it and then mix it with a little water and pour it into an old pillowcase which I hang on an outside line to dry.’
Her work changes according to the seasons. She walks the local landscape daily collecting flowers and leaves. Having studied medicinal herbs at Hartwood Education she enjoys the healing properties of some of the plants she selects.
Forest Tozer of Together_by Nature
At Great Dixter she was ‘given free reign to choose any plants.’ Mind you Forest was accompanied by a gardener. What could be better than visiting Dixter and taking home a souvenir in the form of a piece of pottery imprinted with a plant from this hallowed garden.
Someone from Great Dixter spotted Forest’s work at celebrated topiarist and painter Charlotte Molesworth’s Open Studios event last year. (See previous blog on Charlotte Molesworth).
Forest rolls out the clay to the right thickness and then presses the flower or leaf into the surface cutting around it before peeling the vegetation away. Then using a little brush paints the indented surface with an underglaze finally adding a transparent glaze.
For pieces that aren’t flat Forest uses a decorative slip then dips the plant in water before laying it on the vessel spreading it with her fingers. To finish the process, she lets it dry for a minute before peeling it away.
Forest has had a lifelong passion for pottery and has built up a collection of it including many items from the Alderney Pottery where she went on childhood holidays.
She signed up for pottery lessons at school but quickly abandoned them as they were being taught using structural cardboard.
She realised that she wanted to be a potter after going on a pottery workshop taught by Nadine Samson at Field and Sparrow in West Hythe. Subsequently she volunteered with the talented florist Anna Evans at Anna’s Country Flowers. ‘I learnt so much from her’. I even got to water her plants with nettle tea.
Deeply rooted in the Kent countryside Forest grew up looking after ducks, chickens and going for walks.
It is a testimony to her prowess that Forest is rapidly making a name for herself for example a recent commission was for Napiers, the celebrated Edinburgh herbal shop for three hundred soap dishes decorated with the plants they use in their soaps.
Forest will be at the Power of Plants Festival.
