INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT FRAN:

If I met you and we were chatting and getting on well, or even if we weren’t getting on well (hard to believe I know) after about 30 minutes I’d tell you these things about myself

1 : I’ve seen Frank Sinatra in concert .

2 : I’ve sat next to Yves St Laurent in a bar in Marrakesh

3 : I’ve had 200 driving lessons

4 : I used to do children’s parties and was called Princess Molly Colly Wobbles

5.Helena Bonham Carter once asked me where I got my shoes from ,I said she could have them if we could be best friends ……I actually didn’t say that ,but I wanted to.

I grew up in north London (Swiss Cottage and Primrose Hill before it was trendy) with my lovely dad. My mother died when I was 6 and I was an only child.

I’m telling you all this as I think it’s relevant, because as I get older I realise a lot of my work is about my childhood and trying to get back there, which is weird as I’m much happier as an adult than I was as a child.

When my dad used to go away on business trips he would always bring me back something from the country he had just visited. It would be either a doll in a very bright traditional costume that had been glued on, or a piece of pottery, either a plate or bowl, that I’d put pride of place on my dressing table and fill with all my trinkets.

I did a foundation course at Heatherley’s Art School (no one has ever heard of it) and then did a degree in fashion and textiles at Leicester Polytechnic. A year later, sick of doing textiles and going on the knitting machine, I went to Goldsmiths College and did a two year diploma in ceramics, which was where my head blew off as it was so brilliant.

Anyway after I left I was asked to make the tiles for my friends mums kitchen. I didn’t have a studio so my dad let me make them at home. I put a large plastic tablecloth down on the orange carpet in front of the television and spent about 3 weeks watching television and making tiles. He did however say that I should think about getting a studio as having the lounge covered in clay and dust wasn’t great.

The Late 80s - The Cockpit Years

I got a studio at Cockpit Studios in Holborn, bought a kiln and got started. I made multi-coloured coiled pots that looked like knitted jumpers that had gone in the hot wash and vases with very large 3D flowers stuck on the front.

Throughout this time I was desperate to get into a show called Chelsea Crafts Fair. It was run by The Crafts Council, I must have applied every year for a good 10 years, I never got in apart from one year, still dining out on it!! The reason I’m mentioning it is because I felt I didn’t fit in, I wanted to be minimal, concentrate on form and not decorate things, but it never worked out. The urge to cover things in pattern was just too strong. Now at the ripe old age of 59 I realise none of it mattered anyway, I like covering things in flowers, so as I’ve got more time behind me than ahead of me I might as well just get on with it.

The 2000s

I left Cockpit, stopped making, had two kids Joe and Maggie and spent the next 12 years wandering around shopping centres pushing a pram looking tired with very messy hair and spending far too long in Starbucks ….Mocha Frappuccino Light…. if anyone’s interested.

After a while wandering around shopping centres with messy hair and sitting in Starbucks lost its sparkle and I realised how much I missed making pottery. During a chance conversation with my absolutely amazing father in law when I told him all this he said "Fran, I’ll build you a studio....” and being a man of his word, he did!!!! THANK YOU FRANK

Inspiration

The ceramic department at the V&A, old fabrics, anything Moroccan, things that don’t match, stickers, pencil cases, smelly rubbers, Faberge eggs, folk art, my Ladybird Cinderella book (particularly the blue dress)see below, Matisse and the scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone has just married the beautiful Italian girl and they dance at night under coloured lights, Hungarian Folk art, Persian ceramic tiles and watching television.

If you managed to read to the end of this …Thank you xxxx