Victor Harris/Erin Pots

Victor Harris is a self-taught potter who started making pots for his Bonsai collection.

"The pots that were available at the time were all mass produced and I wanted something more individual with natural earthy colours and textures that would harmonise with my trees. My inspiration has always come from nature, I try to reproduce the colours and textures that i see around me.

 I use  a stoneware crank, but I also hand mix small individual batches  of clay with all sorts of additives to add interesting colours and texture. I use an electric and gas kilns. I fire to stoneware between 1260 c and 1300 c. I built my pots using various methods - slabbing, coiling and pinching. I don't use a wheel. Many of my glazes and clay bodies are totally unique, I will make a small batch of glaze or mix of clay and once i have used them up, I don't repeat them again

My tea bowls are made in the spirit of  Wabi Sabi, which is a Japanese concept of beauty in imperfection. They are called Chawan in Japan."

"Wabi" is the kind of perfect beauty that is seemingly-paradoxically caused by just the right kind of imperfection, such as an asymmetry in a ceramic bowl which reflects the handmade craftsmanship, as opposed to another bowl which is perfect, but soul-less and machine-made.

"Sabi" is the kind of beauty that can come only with age, such as the patina on a very old bronze statue.

Based in the West Country, Vics pots are sent all over the world under the name of Erin Pots. From Hong Kong to Much Wenlock.