Finding Solace in Craft and Clay: an Interview with Emily Tapp

The glass door of the converted storage container traps the morning sun, the recently fired bisque pots casting shadows on the walls of the studio. Jars of mixed glaze are tucked away, the vibrant colours so different to the muted end results that form this earthy collection of ceramics. Though small, the room is carefully organised, and in the centre sits potter Emily Tapp, her beige overalls splattered with specks of clay spinning from the wheel in front of her, her hands manipulating a mug body into its desired shape.

As I’ve yet to meet Emily in person, or step inside her studio in Penryn, this image is pieced together from conversations through Instagram, the place where I first discovered her work. In 2018, the Autumn I began my degree at Falmouth University, Emily was just starting a studio residency at CAST, awarded after graduating from Falmouth’s Fine Art Degree that July. CAST (The Cornubian Arts & Science Trust) is a charity based in Cornwall who support local visual artists and makers, helping to develop creative practices. Emily’s eleven month residency in one of their Helston studios was awarded and funded by Cultivator, a project run by Creative Kernow, allowing her the space and time to develop her practice post-graduation.

At the beginning of her time at CAST, ceramics was just a side project. ‘I trained as a painter at University and referred to myself as an artist back then,’ Emily explains, ‘only coming to craft, in particular ceramics, after my graduation.’ Before working in clay, she made naturally dyed textile art, using tonal pigments made from the earth and reproducing the contours of the land to create her own abstract landscapes.

Although her artwork earned her the residency at CAST, after graduation Emily struggled to find her feet as an artist. ‘The year after graduation was really difficult – I was identifying my practice post–Uni and struggling to figure out what I wanted to do’, and then along came clay. ‘It’s such a tactile medium – dug from the ground, formed on the wheel, fired to a state of permanency. There is such a transformational aspect of the material that really fascinates me.’ This need to create something physical, to use your hands to form an object, is a sentiment I relate to in my own practice. For years, writing was the focus of my creativity, but the feeling of being too caught in my own head led to seeking a physical craft, and finding it in making silver jewellery. ‘I love to make functional things that people will use every day,’ Emily tells me, ‘so I would say I’m more of a maker and less of an artist now.’

On my shelf sit eleven of Emily’s ceramics. Five mugs, two teacups, two beakers, a bowl, a butter dish. Her pieces are the palette of the earth, soft chalky greys and tonal browns, which like her artwork capture the colours and textures of the Cornish landscape, the natural imperfections of the glaze reflecting the irregularities of granite and stone. Emily is ‘endlessly inspired by landscape, daily rituals and traditional craft,’ and though her ceramics are pieces of art in themselves, their forms are functional, intended to be used routinely each day. Beneath each piece is her maker’s mark, pressed into the base where the raw clay is exposed, unglazed, her initials left imprinted; EOT.

Emily’s gratification of holding a finished piece, formed and crafted by her own hands, comes from the rewarding process of making. ‘I love being busy in the studio – an aspect of being a maker that I didn’t quite get when I was making paintings.’ Where she would make around four or five paintings a month, now as a potter Emily makes things everyday, and her hands ‘are always busy and working. There’s thinking, designing and planning involved, too, of course – but being a maker, working in craft really keeps my hands busy.’ We both share a need to bury ourselves in our crafts, to be busy enough to calm the racing thoughts that come with the process of creating. ‘I try to live my life in a creative way whilst also being present, intentional and mindful with my days’, Emily explains, ‘however I can be quite chaotic about it – often waking in the middle of the night with ideas, or staying up until the early hours working on something.’

It isn’t just ceramics keeping her mind busy. Emily is constantly making and creating across a range of forms, and on days when she isn’t in the studio, she works as a freelance photographer, which she describes as ‘a nice break from being constantly messy and covered in clay!’ She also still works in textiles, a skill she honed and experimented with in her artwork at Falmouth, now sewing clothes for herself with French seams from beautiful linen and denim fabrics. ‘My childhood was very creative,’ she explains, ‘my mum did lots of projects with me and she’s a very creatively driven person so I definitely get it from her. We’d come home from school and she’d have painted the living room a different colour. I was lucky enough to have parents who nurtured that part of me.’

This support for creativity is so important, and is something Emily has managed to find in both the online Instagram community, and in Cornwall. Not wanting to move back to London, or leave the life she had created with her partner Tom, Emily stayed in Falmouth after university. ‘When I graduated I had a job, a flat and a life I knew and loved here in Falmouth, so I didn’t really want to leave,’ she explains, ‘I love Cornwall – and I love Falmouth. It really is home for me and I’m so grateful that I get to do what I love down here.’ The community of makers and artists in Cornwall offers an environment where, like in Emily’s childhood, creativity can be nurtured, however as she spends a lot of time alone in her studio, she turns to Instagram, ‘sharing stories, challenges and triumphs’ with fellow makers. ‘It can often feel lonely,’ she says, ‘but less so when there’s a supporting community behind the screen cheering you on.’

The online community is essential for so many of us right now, and is the only way Emily and I have been able to talk as the world battles with lockdown from Coronavirus. We are living in a time where everything is uncertain, and we don’t know how we will come out the other side of this. ‘I just want to be able to keep doing what I’m doing at the moment’, Emily writes in her email, ‘making and creating – especially during the difficult time that the world is going through at the moment.’ It is now more important than ever to support each other as small businesses and makers, to invest in an industry we want to see flourish on the other side of this, and to remember the importance of craft, even though it might seem futile at this time.

When I do finally meet Emily Tapp, I imagine she’ll be sat at the wheel in her beige overalls in the warm light finding its way into the studio. The glass door will be open to the summer air, her work station spread onto the concrete outside to make more room in the tiny storage container. The room will smell of french lavender and rose geranium, or the woody tones of cedar and black pepper as freshly poured candles line the walls, setting in the shade away from the sun’s heat. Perhaps we will talk about how much the wold has changed. Or maybe we will be too busy sharing the intricacies of our crafts whilst swapping our wares, her adorned in a new pair of silver earrings, me clasping a freshly fired mug, made in the very space I now sit in.

by Jess Henshall