East to East: Art and Craft with an Asian Influence

Cecilia Willis has a background in interior decorating, working in a quintessentially English Country House style. A move to live in Japan for a few years proved to be a revelation for Cecilia Willis. Her beautifully balanced ceramics marry the best of both worlds.

Twenty years in Asia has given Cecilia a profound appreciation of a Japanese aesthetic and this together with her decorators eye has influenced her creative work ever since. Cecilia has a need to make; from jewellery she turned to clay and has been throwing at the wheel for 17 years. Returning to England in 2014 she set up her studio in Norfolk.

Cecilia loves the generosity of the bowl form, seeking a simplicity and elegance of shape and striving to create glazes of luminous colour and depth for her pieces. Her bowls and dishes are intended as much for the decoration of a space as for the serving of food. Exploring the moon jar form, looking for the rightness of brush mark decoration and achieving a particular colour of glaze are all part of the excitement as the work evolves. Cecilia uses a fine white stoneware fired in an electric kiln.

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