CC: God, it really makes me want to drink cider, really cold cider. There's great volume in it, very peasant-like, very truthful. I quite like that in some work. I'm not quite sure if this is a honey glaze, and I can't quite make out what the decoration is. I don't know whether it's abstract or alluding to some kind of birds in flight, but it's very bold, very confident. I'm not sure how I like it. I like its qualities, there's something quite gorgeous about the material, but I'm not looking at it as I suppose I should be looking at it, as what it is.
It's a functional object to hold cider. Is it cider? Yes? Try and move it. That's quite lovely, that handle. There are parts of it that are really quite intriguing in terms of their qualities. There's a lovely dribble of glaze on the back here and this is very sturdy; it really does say it is the right kind of handle for that kind of volume. [video clip starts] And it seems very quick in its making. It seems very confident of the fact that it's been thought, to throw very quickly and brought to that neck and into that lip. And it's quite simple and plain in its approach. And I think that's the kind of thing I like about it. These marks again, that movement, it has the same kind of energy or mark-making that almost the rings are left behind. [It's] that kind of idea of throwing something upwards and moving to a volume to contain it. And then deciding, what am I going to put on the edge of it? [video clip ends] It's almost as if ... would it have been more successful without these marks? Because these seem to say an awful lot of these lines. There's quite a reflective surface as well. I can actually see my hand reflected on the surface.
MP: You said it was functional. Do you think it really was, literally?
CC: Yes, I think it was intended to be used. I don't know, I'm not quite sure if that's the truth or not.
MP: I don't know. It would have been a relatively expensive object at the time.
CC: Right. So the people who would have purchased this may not have actually thought of using it, which is a shame because it seems to be intended to be used. Going through all that effort to place this and the stopper for it to actually be used, it seems a shame not for it to be used. I'd use it. Okay I may not use it now, I mean it's rather out of my league, but ...
