NICOLA GILLIS CERAMICS: HANDMADE STONEWARE FOR EVERYDAY RITUALS
We’ve recently added new Nicola Gillis ceramics to the Provision shop – a collection of handmade stoneware tableware that brings together Nicola’s distinctive approach to form, texture and surface.
Brighton-based Nicola makes functional stoneware tableware with a particular sensitivity to the things we use every day – the cup we reach for in the morning, the bowl we hold between our hands, the plate that sits in the middle of the table.
The Making Process Behind Nicola Gillis Ceramics
There’s something very tactile about Nicola’s work. Each piece feels considered, but never overly perfect. Her approach is rooted in the idea that the things we use for eating and drinking should add something to those small, everyday rituals. She draws inspiration from East Asian tableware, where individual vessels have their own purpose, while embracing the irregularities and marks that come from making by hand.
Nicola’s process is deliberately varied. She works with warm stoneware clay, choosing between wheel throwing, slabs, coils and carving depending on the form she wants to create.
Handmade Stoneware with Character
The surfaces are just as important as the forms. Nicola uses oxide brush marks, slips and wax resist to create patterns and textures across the clay. Much of this comes from looking closely at the world around her – stormy skies, weathered surfaces, rust, peeling paint, wood smoothed by the sea and the changing landscape of the Sussex Downs. There’s a sense of age and patina in the work, even though each piece is newly made.
That balance between control and chance is part of what makes the pieces so appealing. Nicola doesn’t try to make every vessel identical. Instead, she allows the clay, the marks and the firing to leave their trace. A slightly uneven edge, a change in glaze or an individual brush mark becomes part of the character of the finished piece.
New Nicola Gillis Ceramics at Provision
It’s an approach that feels very much in keeping with what we look for at Provision: objects that are useful, tactile and made with integrity, but that also become more interesting through the evidence of the person who made them.
We’ve got a selection of Nicola’s mugs, bowls and tableware now available in store and online, with each piece slightly different from the next. They’re the kind of ceramics that are made to be used rather than kept on a shelf – to become part of the everyday, and hopefully a little more familiar with every use.
Explore the new Nicola Gillis collection at Provision.
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