Clarice Cliff Feature Articles

This is how a pestle and mortar owned personally by Clarice Cliff and used by her in the development of Inspiration and other glazes became ‘saved’ after it so nearly ended its life in a skip! 

The story begins around 1929 when Clarice was experimenting with various glazes. Lynn Knight's biography, on pages 110 and 111, states that Clarice explained that “We were always experimenting with slips and glazes”.  For example, in that year, the beautiful cream matt glaze Latona was introduced.  This glaze enhanced Clarice’s designs as the milky coloured glaze showed off the depth of colour of her designs to perfection.  

At this time, Clarice was also experimenting with other glazes one of which was Inspiration.   She explained to a reporter at the time her reason for giving it this name:  “I call these vases…..my inspiration pieces”.  She went on to say that  “A special firing process makes the colours merge with dimming softness into one another”.  Clarice must have been extremely pleased with the result as it was particularly difficult and tricky to produce.  

On her marriage to Colley Shorter in 1940 Clarice moved into Chetwynd House.  She used the garage there to store items in connection with her design and enamelling work, such as her kiln, various paints, enamels and suchlike.  These also included her own pestle & mortar which had been used to grind the various colours used for the Inspiration glaze amongst others. 

When Clarice died in 1972, the house was sold to a developer who knew nothing about its previous owner and cared less.  

The next part of my story shows how pure chance saved Clarice’s pestle & mortar which is now one of my most treasured possessions.

Terry Abbots used to enjoy walking for many years and he became friends with a group of men over time who walked together.  One day he happened to mention Clarice Cliff to one of these friends.  It transpired that this man, who was a builder/decorator happened to do some work for the man who had bought Chetwynd House after Clarice's death.  On one occasion, the developer instructed him to empty the garage and told him to get rid of all its contents.  Terry's friend put most of these contents into a skip, including Clarice's kiln and enamels, etc., but he did not have the heart to throw away the pestle & mortar…..…so he took it home.  He did not know about Clarice and it was only when Terry started telling him about her that he remembered the pestle & mortar which he then offered to give to Terry as he had kept it in his garage all those years and did not have any use for it. Terry was delighted to accept and has been its keeper since then until he passed it on to me.  

There are still stains of Celadon  Green enamel clinging to the both the mortar and the pestle. This colour, copper oxide, was one of the various ingredients in the make-up of the Inspiration glaze. 

When Terry spoke with Jim Hall who worked for Clarice as part of her team, Jim told him that when Clarice began experimenting with glazes in 1929, she must have acquired the pestle & mortar at that time and we know this to be the case as it is stamped "11 - 29"  on the base showing it to have been produced in November  1929.  She kept this in her studio at the Newport Works all the time and when she married, or when the war began, or even later, we don't know which, she will have brought back various items from the Works to Chetwynd House.  

Terry has now passed this pestle and mortar to me and I am now the proud custodian of this truly iconic item so personal to Clarice. 

Edited by Doreen Mann