Once falsely described as a 'Folk Potter', Geoffrey Fuller has no time for the labels which people try to attach to him or his pots.  It is, of course far more comforting to be able to place work in a particular category, to feel that you have got to grips with where a pot fits into the order and scheme of things, but Geoffrey will have none of this.  He does applaud the Folk Potters - he admires the vigour, the sureness and the skill with which they made their pots, and envies the reassuring certainty that comes from working within a tradition.  There is no need to question a process which has proved trustworthy through several generations and where there is no demand for change.  These Potters knew the simplest and easiest way to do things, they knew what people wanted and fulfilled a need.  It is when the vagaries of fashion place demand for change on such traditions that they falter and lose the very spirit that has made their work so successful.  Trained within the tradition, Folk Potters have no need for Art Schools, but today that is the root of most contemporary potters' development.  Geoffrey is no exception, and began his making at Farnham College of Art in Surrey.

Geoffrey showed an interest in pottery early in his life when he started to collect Staffordshire figures whilst a librarian, his first career.  In those days 2s 6d could buy a good figure, or perhaps as much as £2 for a pair.  It seemed that no-one was interested in these pieces and they were easy to find on the markets and in the junk and antique shops of Chesterfield and Sheffield.  He still buys antique pots today, rarely contemporary ones.  He sells some too, as he feels that after having seen a piece and absorbed what it has to offer, he can then afford to part with it.

For four years at Art School as a mature student, Geoffrey worked hard to grow speedily from no knowledge through to amassing a vast amount of ceramic experience.  His first love was saltglaze and techniques, clay and kilns filled his time.  He stayed on for a fourth year as ceramic technician, and then a number of circumstances conspired to divert his attention.  While visiting the V&A he came upon a Middle Eastern dish, cream with a green pattern, that was so fresh and bright and so different to the stoneware to which he had become accustomed.  The clay he had using for saltglazing at Farnham became difficult to manufacture, as the Leeds fireclay, an essential ingredient to the recipe, became difficult to obtain.

At the Potters camp at Losely, Geoffrey was demonstrating the making of ocarinas, in earthenware.  Independently, Paul Barron told him, 'You have a feel for earthenware. You should be making earthenware!' - and Anita Hoy, with some surprise, said that although he had been working in saltglaze she had always thought that his shapes were earthenware shapes.

Looking back over the years Geoffrey muses that, although satisfied with the direction his work has taken, he still maintains that saltglaze was a much easier medium in which to work.  'There are a lot of technical difficulties to overcome with earthenware, and no gifts from the kiln.  You only get out what you put in!  Earthenware is ornate and rich compared with the cool colours associated with stoneware, but you have to be cunning with the application of slips and glazes, where overlapping layers of the slips that have been poured and brushed create movement and excitement.  It's a hard task to achieve.'  Techniques of saltglaze have been unquestionably useful in his treatment of earthenware.  In saltglazing, pots are wadded so the saltglaze can get underneath, and continue the rich and varied surface.  After handling some Devon harvest jugs of the mid 19th century, Geoffrey saw that they too had been slipped and glazed and put straight onto the shelf without wiping.  The two ideas gelled and he fires his hollow ware on triangular strips of biscuit fired clay, which act as kiln props.  (The props can be knocked off quite easily after firing.)  To extend the homogeneous look to the pot, slip is also brushed around the inside at the top, so that the colour runs over the rim and into the pot.  The pots are thrown with soft clay on a slow wheel, using a wooden wheel head and a few wooden tools.  They are once fired to 1060 to complement the soft finish.  He isn't in favour of high fired earthenware trying to be a poor man's stoneware.  in fact, he feels that people today are obsessed with stoneware, that they have become unaccustomed to looking at earthenware, and consequently it has become a disregarded art form.  On the window sill in front of Geoffrey's wheel stands a plant in a green glazed plant pot, a little Swedish whistle that he found in a junk shop in Farnham, and two strong, Medieval handles.  Many try to label Geoffrey a 'Medieval Potter', and indeed he is very excited by the qualities of Medieval pots, but again he shrugs off this label.  For him, the most interesting aspect of the Medieval work is encapsulated in the quality of those two handles.

Whilst a student at Farnham he continually found himself reacting in opposition to the mainstream.  Many students finished handles with either the 'swallowtail' or the thumbprint without, he felt, any real thought of whether it suited the pot, or if it was a feasible thing to do.

Geoffrey never uses a thumb print and always pulls handles on the pot.  In fact, he does more work on the handle than at first appears.  He keeps the work simple, but the simplicity of the finish and decoration can often be deceptive.  See examples of Geoff's work here.