The Adopt-a-Potter charity has been set up to assist the apprenticeship of potters to established master potters. The charity aims to provide the funding necessary to allow a one year apprenticeship and applications are currently being sought for the first placement in the early summer of 2009. **

In order to be able to make these partnerships happen Adopt-a-Potter needs to raise funds. One of our ideas is to produce a series of strictly limited edition tee-shirts, each one designed by a well known artist or potter. These tee-shirts will be of good quality and washable. Anyone buying one will not only have a piece of wearable art but will also be safe in the knowledge that they are supporting a very worthwhile venture.

The first in the series has been designed by Tom Hovey, a Welsh artist from Newport. His work frequently embodies a political message, often cutting edge and with a keen sense of observation and piercing wit. The image has been specially drawn for us and will appear nowhere else. Tom has just finished working for the Satchi organisation. You can see more of his work at http://www.tomhovey.co.uk/ Tom's tee-shirt has been sponsored by Potterycrafts and Briar wheels and we are grateful to them for their support..

Adopt-a-Potter is thrilled to announce that internationally renowned artist Breon O'Casey has agreed to create an image for the second in the series. For Breon O'Casey to agree to work with us is extremely exciting. Breon's work is eagerly sought after and appears in many public and private collections including the Tate Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Breon O'Casey lives and works near to St Ives in Cornwall and is respected and admired as a painter, sculptor, jeweller and weaver and more recently as a printmaker; working closely with the late Hugh Stoneman and experimenting with lino-cut, etching, and carborundum forms of printmaking. His prints have an immediate impact, combining simplicity of form and line and often vibrant colour, with his highly personal vision of birds, trees, fruit, abstract forms and more recently, the figure.
Breon O'Casey has been closely associated with the St Ives' School of painters and sculptors. His apprenticeship to the sculptors Denis Mitchell and Barbara Hepworth confirmed his ability to work with his hands. He was close friend to Bernard Leach and to Shoji Hamada and is one of the few painters who admit to the influence in his own work of the ways in which potters decorate a pot.

Tom Hovey's t-shirts are available from Lisa Hammond at Mazehill Pottery.
Each T-shirt is £15.00 plus £3.00 p&p.
p&p at cost only for orders of 2 or more T-shirts.

Breon O'Casey's shirt, we expect a huge demand and the shirt is destined to become a collector's item. You may order in advance.
The T-shirts will be available in June 2009.
Each T-shirt is £20.00 plus £3.00 p&p.
p&p at cost only for orders of 2 or more T-shirts.

Please place your order with Lisa Hammond.
Cheques should be made payable to Adopt-a-Potter.
Please include your postal address and telephone number with your order.