Rupert Spira Ceramics

Spira's early wheel-based pottery work reflected these early influences being in a very traditional Bernard Leach utilitarian style. This work is mostly practical in nature, taking the form of teapots, vases, vessels, plates and other culinary ware. In 1996, he set up his own pottery at Church Farm in Shropshire where his style changed from a functional to a more minimalist, finer, more complex style ranging in size from miniature to large-scale. While he continues to make and sell functional pottery he is now known for this more recent studio pottery. His best and most recognizable work contains poems, both self-written and by Kathleen Raine the celebrated British poet. The poems are either scratched into the glaze in the sgraffito style or written as embossed letters either in a square block or in a single line across the surface of the vessel. These works vary in size from small prayer bowls only a few centimetres across through to huge, open bowls 50 cm or more in diameter. He is also known for his cylinders which are often made as part of a series and while each stands alone, are meant to be exhibited as a group. These also vary in scale from a few centimetres high through to the largest being a meter or more tall. He works in a limited palette, mainly simple white, off-white and black monochromes but he does also occasionally make deep, red-glazed bowls and bright yellow tea sets.