Artist: Doug Fitch
Doug Fitch, SCOTLAND
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My wife and I are long established potters with international reputations, having traveled in Japan and throughout the USA, to exhibit our work and to deliver workshops and lectures. In 2013 we became partners in life and in business. Our styles compliment, as we have evolved from similar influences, but our work is nevertheless clearly distinct from one another.
I have been making pots for most of my life. It’s a strange thing, to be excited by something as simple as a brown clay jug and I can’t explain it, but it seems that it happens to some people; it just gets under your skin.
It was at the age of eleven that I first encountered medieval pottery. My headmaster, a keen archaeologist would take us on trips to formerly inhabited sites, commonly ploughed fields, where our eyes would scour the furrows in search of fragments of pottery. Back in the school room, he would show us photographs of the type of pottery that these shards had once formed a part of. The experience gave me my understanding at the time, of what I considered pottery made by hand looked like. This aesthetic has formed the basis of my work ever since.
We share materials, working in red earthenware, decorated with a self-imposed restricted palette of coloured slips, covered with rich honey glazes. The pots are fired in the wood kiln, which we stoke continuously for up to twenty hours. Subsequently we travel together to shows up and down the country, selling our wares. Our life is our work and our work is our life, we live and we breathe pottery.
Douglas Fitch draws influence from the ancient tradition of country pottery that is part of the folk heritage of Britain. His roots are set firmly within tradition however his work is not simply pastiche. The pots he produces are made with the finest of traditional craft skills, but they each embrace a contemporary style, which makes his pieces very much of our time. Douglas is a long established potter with an international reputation, having travelled in Japan and throughout the USA, to exhibit his work and deliver workshops and lectures.
Education
1983-1985 Derbyshire College of Higher Education, Derby, Diploma in Design Crafts, Studio Pottery.
Selected Exhibitions and Events
2121 Potfest Compton Verney, June.
Digital Craft Festival, 26th to 29th March.
2020 Fitch & McAndrew Online V, October 31st - November 14th.
The Stratford Gallery, Stratford on Avon, May - June.
2019 North Carolina Potters Conference, Seagrove, North Carolina USA, 26th - 29th March.
Art in Clay, Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. 16th - 18th August.
Earth and Fire, The Harley Gallery, Welbeck. 21st - 23rd June.
Spring Fling, Selected open studios event in Dumfries and Galloway. 25th - 27th May.
Slipware, Contemporary Ceramics, London, August.
Tablewares, Tinsmiths, Ledbury, 12th October - 16th November.
Fitch & McAndrew Online IV, online exhibition, 25th October - 19th November.
York Ceramics Fair, Craft Potters Association at The Hospiteum, York, 23rd - 24th November.
2018 Fitch & McAndrew, solo show, Schaller Gallery, Michigan, USA, 5th May - 6th June.
Spring Fling, Open Studios Event, Dumfries and Galloway, 26th - 28th May.
Earth & Fire, International ceramics exhibition, The Harley Gallery, Nottingham, 22nd - 24th June.
Potfest in the Park, Hutton in the Forest, Cumbria, 27th - 29th July.
York Ceramics Fair, The Hospitium, York, 6th - 7th October.
2018 Fitch and McAndrew at The Schaller Gallery, Michigan, USA.
2017 DAGFAS, talk and demonstration, 17th March.
Modern Makers. Lead maker in a programme for a small group of young people to work intensively with a professional maker to learn craft skills. February - September.
Great British Slipware Exhibition, Gallery St Ives, April.
Spring Fling, Open Studios Event Dumfries and Galloway, May.
Earth & Fire, The Harley, Nottingham, June.
Potfest in the Park. Hutton in the Forest, Cumbria, 26th - 28th July.
Pots and Food. Wardlow Mires, Derbyshire, 9th - 10th September.
On Reverie. The Stratford Gallery, Stratford on Avon. October 7th - November 2nd.
Goldmark Gallery. Ongoing from June.
Fitch & McAndrew Online II. October - November.
Contemporary Ceramics. Contemporary Ceramics, London. November 4th - December 24th.
Slipware at Clay College. Clay College, Stoke on Trent. November 11th - December 24th.
2016 Sedgley Ceramics Weekend Demonstrator, March.
Spring Fling, Open Studios Event Dumfries and Galloway, May.
Earth & Fire, Rufford Craft Centre, Nottingham, 28 - 30 June.
South Wales Potters, Autumn Demonstrator, September.
International Wood Fire Exhibition, The Schaller Gallery, USA, October - November.
2015 Spring Fling, Open Studio Event, Dumfries and Galloway, 23 - 25 May.
Earth & Fire, Rufford, Nottinghamshire, June 26th - 28th.
Red (the other clay), Trelowarren, Cornwall, June 15th - August 9th.
A Love Affair With Clay, Leach Pottery St. Ives, November.
British Pottery, Hankyu Department Store, Osaka, Japan, 7 - 13 October.
2014 The Best of British Pottery, Gallery St. Ives at Ginza Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo, September.
Earth and Fire, Rufford Country Park, Nottingham. June 20th - 22nd.
4x4x4, Scottish Potters 40 Years Exhibition, Barony Centre, West Kilbride, July 11th - September 14th.
2013 Doug Fitch & Motoyasu Hirayama, Gallery St Ives, Tokyo, April 6th - 23rd.
Guest Artist, Radovljca Pottery Festival, Slovenia, May.
Earth and Fire International Pottery Festival, Nottingham. June 21st - 23rd.
Echoes of Leach, Leach Pottery, St. Ives, June 15th - July 15th.
Demonstrator, Aberystwyth International Ceramics Festival, June 28th - 30th.
Contemporary English Slipware, Solo Exhibition, Oakwood Ceramics, Nottinghamshire, October 26th - November 3rd.
2012 Slipware, Gallery St. Ives, Tokyo, Japan. March
Art Fair Tokyo. Japan, April
Earth and Fire International Pottery Festival, Nottingham. June.
Art in Clay, Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. July 6th - 8th.
Autumn Show, Castlegate House, Cockermouth, Cumbria, September - November.
2011 Invited demonstrator, Cape Cod, Virginia and North Carolina USA, April
Earth and Fire International Pottery Festival, Rufford Country Park, Nottingham. June 24th - 26th.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Imagine Gallery, Long Melford, Suffolk. May – June.
2010 Hollyford Harvest, Doug Fitch Modern Day Country Potter film shown at Montpellier Film Festival of Ceramics and Glass, March.
Invited demonstrator, Scottish Potters Association annual conference, Perthshire, March.
Douglas Fitch & Geoffrey Fuller, Earthmarque Gallery, June.
Earth and Fire International Pottery Festival, Rufford Country Park, Nottingham. June.
Honest Pots, York Museum and Art Gallery 9th October 2010 – 9th October 2011
Great British Potters, Earthmarque Gallery, October 15th - 30th.
Publications
Featured in Wood-Fired Ceramics: 100 Contemporary Artists, Amadeo Salamoni, 2013
Featured in Techniques Using Slip, John Mathieson, 2010.
Featured in Advanced Pottery Techniques, Linda Bloomfield, 2012.
Featured in The Shelby Star Newspaper, North Carolina. April 24th 2011.
Opportunities and Problems, Ceramic Review 2007.
Featured in World of Interiors Magazine. August 2008.
Going Modern and Being British. Publication for Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1998.