To mark BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2021, each week, in our Artist’s Corner ICC Digital has been bringing you images from the gallery of the Photographer Franco Chen.
Born in Jamaica, of Chinese heritage, Franco became resident photographer at the Irish Cultural Centre when it opened in 1995. He has taken hundreds of photographs of many of the bands and artists who performed here over the years and he’s captured so many ICC magical moments.
Throughout Black History Month 2021, we will bring you some of Franco’s photos of our wonderful friends in the Black Community and we’ll give you a glimpse of Franco’s unique eye and intuitive gift as a portrait and event photographer and as a London street photographer.
This weeks photograph from Franco’s gallery is the striking image of the talented Potter, Sonia Watson, who grew up locally and has taught Pottery in the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham for many years. She started out her career as a teacher at Cardinal Manning School in Ladbroke Grove and later moved to The London Oratory School in Fulham, where she remained for almost thirty years.
While teaching, Sonia was able to continue her own work as an Artist, because of the excellent facilities which were available to her through the Hammersmith Adult Education Centres. Having access to the Pottery Kilns at these centres was instrumental to the development of her unique style and creativity.
Teaching pottery and sharing the joy of working with clay has always played a major role in Sonia’s life and in 2015, after she retired from teaching, she acquired a space at the Kindred Studios, based at Shepherd’s Bush Market, which enabled her to continue working with young people in school and community workshops. Several years later Sonia moved to her current studio at Acklam Workspace, on the Westway, only two minutes from Portobello Road.
Living and working in the area where she first started teaching means she often bumps into her former pupils who tell her about their pieces of pottery still in use or on display at their parents’ home, some forty years later.
Sonia employs many techniques to produce her pieces and pots, but her favourite is still the process of coiling. She loves to hand-build unique pieces and then glaze them with bold geometric designs inspired by both African weaving and Greek ceramics.
Sonia belongs to London Potters – association of ceramicists and she regularly take part in their exhibitions. She has also shown at a number of London galleries, including The Paolozzi Gallery and Annual LOS Art Exhibition.
You can buy Sonia’s ceramics and pots from soniawatsonceramics.weebly.com
