Pit-Fired Pottery by Fiona Hufton

“My day job is in accounts, so it’s very methodical and quite prescribed; with numbers, there’s always a correct answer. In contrast to that, the pottery is very random!”

Fiona Hufton is in her fourth year on Tresco and describes the island as “an amazing place to live”. Though she works in accounts now, she originally went to art college and spent 15 years as a potter’s technician.

During any downtime, Fiona was given her chance at the wheel. “I’d start with about 20 balls of clay and try to throw a straight cylinder. I’d be quite proud of them, and the potter would come along and squash them one by one, going, ‘Nope, nope, nope – you can keep that one.’ He was such a great teacher. I hadn’t realised how much I’d learned until I came back to doing pottery.”

However, when she became a single parent, Fiona decided she needed a “proper job”, training as an accountant. This career has taken her to many different locations and, ultimately, to Tresco. But the fortuitous arrival of a potter’s wheel really set her creative wheels in motion once again.

Now, working in her quayside studio – where she’s perfectly placed to observe its comings and goings – Fiona creates pottery for sale through Gallery Tresco and the island’s Makers Market.

When it comes to her creative work, her sense of fun is evident. She has a kiln, but also works with a fire pit, replicating a traditional form of pottery that’s been dated back to around 3,500 BC. It’s a process that’s not without its quirks, however.

“They used to explode a lot! Anna at the gallery would ask, ‘Why do you keep doing this?’ and I’d say, ‘Because there is a way to make it work! I will find it!’ These days, it seems to be more successful.”

Living and working on Tresco has a clear impact on Fiona’s craft. In a place where everything has to be brought in by boat, and waste taken back off again, the community has learned to be resourceful. None more so than Fiona. Wood offcuts, old storage heater bricks, laundry powder buckets – all have found a second purpose.

“I’m a proper scavenger! We have to send all the broken electrical things off-island, so I go down with a pair of secateurs and cut the flex off them, then strip this down to copper wire that I can wrap around the pots.” This she does to create interesting colour effects; copper normally causes things to turn green, but because oxygen is stolen in the pit, the wire instead leaves a band of “copper red”.

The weather is another factor – at the mercy of boat sailings, Fiona’s clay has to be ordered well in advance for winter – as is the island power supply, which curiously means that her kiln can’t reach the high temperatures required to produce the colour purple. But Fiona wouldn’t have it any other way.

“When I’m at the wheel, I completely lose myself to what I’m doing. It’s a huge meditation for me. You forget everything else, and get zoned in. If, at the end of it, I produce something I’m proud of, that’s even better.”