SPOTLIGHT ON COACHING: Ceramicist Bridget Tennent

The stunning work of Bridget Tennent (photograph: Edmund Blok)

I had the pleasure of meeting Bridget Tennent during Handmade Oxford 2024. She was exhibiting with the Oxfordshire Craft Guild and we hit it off immediately! Ours was a serendipitous encounter, Bridget was looking to update her website and needed help to uncover, and then put into words, her unique and beautiful story.

Bridget’s ceramics express light and shade, yin and yang. Weighty stoneware forms, firmly rooted in the earth, stand in stark contrast with fine porcelain vessels, at once weightless, airy and light. Two worlds united in one maker.

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I have a soft spot for ceramics and Bridget’s stand, amongst all the many Handmade Oxford exhibitors, had already caught my eye. However, what really pulled me into her world was the way she spoke about it. Here was a process, and resulting work, that deserved to have its entire voice heard: to lose one aspect of her dual creative output risked the dimming of the other. The balance of both had to be represented to fully express this maker’s truth.

We embarked on a coaching process.

Based entirely on the journey we undertook together into Bridget’s life in ceramics, her experience and what making means to her, we set ourselves the task of shaping honest and expressive words for her website. Subtle storytelling had to communicate the duality that sits at the core of her work, whilst simultaneously ensuring both elements of her making were honoured.

In the time since my last newsletter, the new website has been launched and I am hugely proud of what Bridget has achieved.

A member of the Oxfordshire Craft Guild (as mentioned earlier) and the Society of Designer Craftsmen, Bridget’s work can be discovered here.

Ceramicist Bridget Tennent (photograph: Edmund Blok)