Ali Gane Ceramics
2026 – Taking part in Potfest in the Pens – Melton Mowbray
Ali Gane is a Yorkshire-based ceramicist who creates work that has a sense of place, a feeling of connection and familiarity. She is primarily a hand builder and her work is informed by the shapes, forms, structures and colours of the natural environment.
Ali combines white earthstone and red earthenware clays to create a unique patchwork of strata-like patterned clay that is applied to formers and moulds. After bisque firing, each piece is glazed using multiple glazes, often including volcanic silicon carbide, to produce distinctive ceramic pieces.
Her ceramics training started in the 1980s at Ripon College in North Yorkshire where she studied for a BA (Hons) in Geography and Art. Under the tutelage of Victor Priem and Peter Clough, she specialised in big, classically shaped and meticulously constructed coil pots that were simply glazed and mostly fired in a gas kiln under reduction.
After graduating in 1986, several years later Ali joined the creative and supportive ceramics community at Harrogate College where she is now exploring exciting new ways to work with clay that are adventurous and authentic.
Ali’s piece ‘Fragile Earth’ won Saturday’s Public Vote at Potfest in the Pens in October 2022.
“My blue pots are inspired by the glistening turquoise Croatian sea and the limestone rocks we swam off each morning during a holiday there in 2019. I hope my work sparks something in you too, perhaps to contemplate, reminisce, and be transported somewhere magical!”