Teapot win for potter

PUMPKIN tea, anyone? Well, the choice of brew is entirely in the hands of the owners, but the distinctive prize-winning pumpkin shape of the teapot it comes in is drawn from the vivid imagination of crafts-woman Ruthanne Tudball.

Hand-made pots shaped by Ruthanne, of Welborne Common, near Mattishall, adorn tea tables and displays the world over: in Israel, Germany and France, her native US, Canada, and beyond.

As part of a multi-national group of aficionados known as the Top Ten Teapot Masters, she has taken her wares to China, and held workshops in Taiwan. And now California-born Ruthanne has put the tea in Texas, where, to her surprise and delight, she has just won a $1,000 Best in Show award in an international teapot tournament run by an organisation set up by the Houston Potters Guild.

Specialists displayed hundreds of their designs as part of the Texas Teapot Tournament, an event held to mark the launch of a clay arts museum and educational organisation.

Ruthanne told the Times: “Someone emailed me to ask if I would take part, and I said: ‘Sure.’ I sent off two teapots, but as far as I knew they were just going to go on exhibition. It opened on January 4, and next day I received a call saying I’d won an award.”

The event finished yesterday, and Ruthanne said the winning teapot would be among the first exhibits to be put on display at the museum.

So, why the pumpkin shape? “Oh, it’s such a beautiful, sumptuous form,” she said. “A lot of my work is influenced by natural shapes or the landscape.”

By her own admission, Ruthanne doesn’t care much for the English way of taking tea: the robust, conventional, dark-leafed cuppa laced with milk. She prefers green tea or the fragrant pleasures of Earl Grey. Yet she’s as potty as the rest of us about the receptacle in which the stuff is served.

“I have made teapots since almost the day I became a potter,” she said. “I just love the form. In the pottery world, the teapot is one of the most challenging things to make - not only creating an interesting, pleasant object that you would like to own for its appearance but making it work as well. And, for me, part of the ‘making’ process is being able to use it. It matters a great deal to me that my teapots are functional.”

Ruthanne works from home in her own gallery and studio. She and her former journalist husband David moved to Welborne from Reading three years ago.

Over the years she has perfected her own method of finishing her teapots wet on the wheel. And much of her pottery work, which also includes mugs, plates and bowls, employs soda glazing, a technique using bicarbonate of soda that accentuates the edges of her creations.

Ruthanne’s talents have manifested themselves in other ways, too. Having harnessed the creative talents of other villagers, she was instrumental in providing the eye-catching bird bath at Welborne Village Hall that’s decorated with gaily-coloured figures of cats, butterflies, horses and more.

To find out more about Ruthanne’s work, including visiting times for her studio, call

01362 858770 or visit www.ruthannetudball.com

(this article was taken from derehamtimes.co.uk)