26/05/2026
Q&A with ceramicist, Rich Miller 💬
Ahead of his first major solo exhibition, Fired Legacies: The Ceramic World of Rich Miller, we spoke with Rich about how his passion for clay began, the ideas that shape his work, and the ambitions that continue to drive him forward.
What was your first potting experience?
The first time I experienced clay was at secondary school. I made a rudimentary pinched pot with a sculpted mouth on the side. Although I still have the pot, I can't remember what my original intent was when making it. I didn’t have a profound moment with clay when I first touched it, but I certainly enjoyed the malleability and the potential for the material to be transformed from mud into almost anything!
The earliest memory I have of working with a similar material was sitting alongside my mum as a young child during one of her sugar craft classes. Pressing sugar paste into netting to create texture, sculpting petals and assembling flowers. I’m sure this laid the foundations for modelling and making in clay, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time!
What is it about working with clay that you like so much?
There something incredibly satisfying in taking inanimate mud and giving it life. Transforming the soft and malleable clay to fired, solid and permanent ceramic. Clay is continually engaging. It’s a material that allows me to be expressive, whilst also requiring the building of knowledge and skills to realise its potential. Ceramics has a rich historical past and is often the medium that tells us so much about how society functioned historically. Clay can be political, functional, decorative, it can form the very structure of the houses that we live in. It’s such a broad discipline and offers endless possibilities for areas of exploration. I couldn’t imagine working in any other material.
Discover Rich's ceramics in Fired Legacies: The Ceramic World of Rich Miller, on display in Watts Contemporary Gallery until 28 June 2026.
Read the full Q&A on our blog. Link: https://bit.ly/4nP9VrR
