Sophie Smith studied at Chelsea School of Art and began to make and sell earthenware ceramics in 1995. She moved away from London in 1997 and now runs a studio from her home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Sophie has now been making pottery for the past 25 years in her studio in the garden. She makes bright and colourful earthenware ceramics.

Sophie is strongly influenced by medieval art and design mixed with some of her favourite artists like Chagall and Klimt. Her motivation is to be creative and have fun. She has two lines of work. The first is individually slip-cast and hand built. This is a range of decorative and functional objects from cases to candle holders to egg cups which emphasise her original use of colour, shape and humour.

The other line concentrates on one off decorative pieces of press moulded bowls, dishes and platters. Here limited colours are used with the emphasis on texture, contrasting gloss and matt, glazed and unglazed, rough and smooth with dark and light surfaces. Her influences here are taken from etchings and drawings whose narrative captures the imagination with simple words and images.

To make her dishes and bowls she uses moulds and presses lightly grogged clay into them, creating a hand made look to the piece. Sophie creates simple designs and texture by cutting into the clay. Each piece is fired three times. Sophie mixes slips, matt and gloss glazes gold and platinum lustres to create a precious look.

Sophies’ work is decorative but can be functional too. To clean her work she uses soapy water. The lustres contain 10% gold and platinum.