Northern Potters Association

The aim of the NPA is to encourage and support artists in the production of sculptural, functional, fine art and decorative studio pottery in all its forms throughout the North of England

van Vliet, Andy

  • Andy van Vliet 1
  • Andy van Vliet 4
  • Andy van Vliet 3
  • Andy van Vliet 2
  • Andy van Vliet 5

I’m a studio potter working in Sheffield.
Brought up in Devon within a family of artisans; I always wanted to be outside and to make things. I first trained as a civil engineer and then a landscape architect developing skills and sensibilities that feed my distinctive approach to making pots; one that combines intuition, technical capability and a search for rightness.
A wheel and fire potter, I make things both useful and sculptural; each piece different and often in a series exploring ideas of form and materiality. Using stoneware clay, my work is reduction fired in a gas kiln to 1200C. Limited colour palettes are often used; rough textured clay body tones and modelled surface melding with earthy, iron-rich glazes.