About Me

 

 

Hi. I’m Andrew Macbean and I make pottery in my studio in South London. Welcome to my web site. I combine a career as an actor along side pottery. I was brought up on the Gower peninsula in Wales I continue to be inspired by the sand, the sea and the natural world. Not sure how I’ve ended up living in London?

My pottery goal is to make pieces that I am proud of and that people will relish using. Drinking coffee from the perfect mug is a joy. Eating pasta from your favourite bowl enriches the taste  - it does in my head anyway! I hope you enjoy looking at my work.

I show my work here on my web site and via instagram. This year I am exhibiting for the first time at Waterperry Garden at Craft in Focus from 19 to 21 July. A small selection of my pots can be seen at Gallery 49 in Bridlington.

I was a contestant on The Great British Pottery Throwdown 2024. It opened my eyes as to how to extend my creative thinking and encouraged me to be more ambitious. The 1 hour show on TV is a distillation of so much filming not to mention hours and hours of practise, developing ideas for the challenges, which, believe me, are challenging. If you are an aspiring home potter I strongly recommend applying. You learn a lot and as importantly, it is fun.

 

My Studio:

All my work is hand crafted from a small home studio. I make anything from garden gnomes to beakers and plates, bowls and vases. Recently I extended the old outdoor toilet in the garden and built a kiln room. 

 

Glazing:

In the main I use brush on glazes from all sorts of suppliers. I I love layering different glazes, especially on bowls, to create land and sea scapes. 

I don’t make pots in bulk. Every piece I make is unique. Enjoying the process is as important as feeling proud at the outcome. Making pots and especially opening the kiln after a glaze firing is the best and the worst. That sounds negative but it’s not. I start off with an idea which weeks, sometimes months, later emerges from the kiln. Every compression, every extra bit of wedging and every layer of glaze will show in the finished piece of work. It is the ultimate living proof or what you reap, you sow. Incredible and totally unexpected things happen in pottery. That's the joy.