Julian King-Salter

Julian first made a coil pot at school in 1968 and was immediately hooked – and very well supported by teacher David Buchanan to pursue his passion in exploring what could be made by hand-building with clay. Other than what he was empowered to discover at school, he had no formal training.

In 1976, Julian moved to Wales to pursue self-sufficient rural living. From there he became a full-time potter exhibiting in major galleries around the UK until 2000, when family circumstances took him to Australia. He set up his own workshop near Brisbane, making and exhibiting. Julian returned to England in 2020, and now lives and works in Staffordshire.

Originally inspired by early pottery around the world, then by the wild landscapes in which he lived and sojourned, he is also inspired by improvisational music, and dance.

Design and making are simultaneous. Forms are intuitively hand-built with flattened coils of white St. Thomas, and Keuper red stoneware clays. These are refined and shaped by pinching, and decorated with a palette of glazes self-developed over the years, then fired in an oxidised electric firing to cone 9.

He became a selected member of the CPA in 1992 and a Fellow in 1997. After lapsing while overseas, he was re-selected in 2021.