ICF Aberystwyth 2025
At the start of this month, my wonderful Girlfriend (henceforth to be known as T) and I got the ferry to Wales and then embarked on a 2-3 car hour journey southwards along the coast to Aberystwyth. I apologise to the people of Wales, but my knowledge of Aberystwyth was limited only to what was shown in Season 3 of ‘The Crown’. That is to say, I knew nothing. Turns out, Ireland and Wales are pretty similar in a lot of ways- the scenery is stunning, the people are sound, and we’ve both got… a history with a certain neighbour.
Alas, this isn’t a travel blog! So let’s talk about the 2025 International Ceramics Festival- the reason for our trip. The three day festival had talks, demonstrations, lectures, and exhibitions, all discussing ceramics. I’m going to talk here about my highlights, but this isn’t an exhaustive list of everything on at the festival. Also, as always, my reviews of things (positive and negative) are all coming from me- I’m not being paid by anyone to write this. It feels silly to say, but with the way the world is at the minute you never really know.
Looking towards Éire from the beach
Let’s start with the kiln demonstrations that were going on all weekend. If I’m counting correctly, there were 8 different types of kilns being fired across the three days. For any non-potters reading this- that’s a lot- ESPECIALLY because none of them were set-and-forget electric kilns. Repping Ireland was Jane Jermyn, firing a small gas-powered kiln. Jermyn was showcasing the Obvara firing method, which meant that she took her pots out of the heat when they were red hot, dunked them in the Obvara mixture (a bucket of flour, yeast, and water), and then quickly put them into a bucket of water to cool. I’m not actually sure what temperature she fired the pots to, but usually Obvara is fired to about 900°C. Silly me forgot to take a photo of a finished piece, but I promise it’s well worth a Google.
I think the most populated kiln at all times was Euan Craig’s fast fire wood kiln. From beginning to end, Craig’s kiln takes about 14 hours and 400kg of wood (while firing to 1300°C). This may sound like a lot, but a similarly sized wood kiln can use anywhere from 3000-10,000kg of wood per firing (depending on the type of kiln and wood, of course). Craig’s kiln was to be fired all weekend and opened on the final day of the festival, the pieces inside to be sold straight away. More on that in a little while.
Euan Craig’s kiln
Across the college campus there were multiple exhibitions going on. The ICF team were showcasing and selling pots made by the artists giving lectures/ doing demonstrations in the main building of the festival, which was incredibly handy because I could pick what talks I wanted to go to based on the vibe of their pots.
There was also an exhibition of ‘Emerging Makers’’ pots, my favourite of which was a set of pots with medieval-style illustrations on them, made by Margaret Brampton.
Hiding in the basement of the main building was an exhibition of (mostly deceased I think) potters’ pots- the most exciting to me being two Lucie Rie pots. I got so excited when I saw them that I couldn’t even take a decent picture. Lucie Rie is an icon. I’ll write more about her at some point (as she deserves way more than a few sentences), but if you haven’t heard of her, her pots generally sell for tens- or hundreds- of thousands at auction. Enough said.
At the center of the whole festival was a ginormous tent housing all of the vendors- pots and pottery supplies for sale as well as the best (vegan) sausage roll that I’ve ever had. I’m not joking, the sausage roll was maybe £2 and about 8 inches long. Plus, the drinks (both alcoholic and non-alco) were very cheap. The selection of pottery supplies was quite sparse, to be honest, with only four stalls with products that you could browse through. The standout here was R&M Pottery forms, who started making forms for his wife, until it eventually became a business for him. I don’t often use forms in my pot-making, but I am a FIEND for a good pottery tool, so I couldn’t help but buy a few. They’re sturdy, good quality, cheaper than their competitors, and there’s a lovely guy behind it all- what more could you want. (this isn’t an ad I just liked his vibe)
All of this, by the way- the food, kilns, exhibitions, and stalls- didn’t require a ticket to access. The demonstrations also didn’t really require a ticket, as they were livestreamed (and are still available to watch) on YouTube (in fact, our tickets weren’t checked at all over the weekend, even for the lectures). At one point, after queueing to get into one particular lecture, we were told that the theatre was full and we couldn’t go in (they told us that we could livestream it or watch it back later on YouTube). That was particularly disappointing as it was one of the more important lectures of the whole weekend- the Sustainability Symposium.
Regardless, these things happen, and it did give us more time to wander around the festival without as many crowds. This came in particularly handy when it came to the ‘From Ceramics to Sound’ exhibition, as there was no extra foot traffic intruding upon the bizarre (in a good way) performances. Pieces from three artists were on show: William Cobbing, Abi Haywood and Copper Sounds. I’ll attach some short clips to this blog post.
Abi Haywood
Copper Sounds
Finally, the last day of the festival saw Euan Craig’s kiln opening. It had been firing all weekend, and now came the tense moment where we see if his firing had been successful or not. Euan lives in Japan, and makes pots with Japanese materials, so even he was a bit nervous to open a kiln full of pots made from Welsh materials. Have you ever been to a really crazy concert? Like, One Direction coming to Croke Park in 2014 level of insanity (I wasn’t there because I am a #lesbian who much preferred Fifth Harmony, but I’ve heard that it was extremely chaotic). That’s what was happening around Euan Craig’s kiln as he was opening it- people crushing up against the barriers trying to get their hands on something from the famous potter. Major shoutout to Amy B, the ICF Volunteer and ICON who made a beeline towards me and T as soon as the sale started so that we could get the piece we wanted. With Amy B on our team, T was able to make it out of the pileup relatively unscathed (she had to fight a pensioner but it was worth it). Pictured below is my new bowl- that black ash lining the inside is from the rushes that were placed inside for the firing. Usually, Craig would grind it away with some steel wool, but he didn’t get a chance seeing how when T bought the bowl it was still warm from the kiln. I’m probably going to leave it as it is.
Overall, the festival was interesting and the vibe was great. Because of that, I’m giving it 2 pots out of 3 (based on the world-renowned-ORLAWITHAFADA-pottery-event-entertainment-scale, obviously). Wales as a country gets a 3/3- it’s absolutely stunning.
And that’s it- my recap of the International Ceramics Festival Aberystwyth is complete! Everybody say a big thank you to T for a) being the love of my life and b) taking pretty much all of the photos that you see here.
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xoxo
-Ó
(Some bonus pictures below x)
