Factory Friday: Cyan Clayworks

As part of our ongoing Factory Friday series, where we delve into the stories behind Scottish manufacturing, we are focusing in on some of the facilities and workshops where you can make work yourself in Scotland.

This week we've interviewed Fiona who runs Cyan Clayworks, a ceramics studio offering access to facilities, courses, tuition and project support for artists, designers and students.

Could you tell us about how Cyan Clayworks  got started?

We set up Cyan Clayworks in 2012, after about a year of planning. Luckily the studio at Beaverhall came up quite early on in our search for property. We’ve both been practicing ceramic artists since the mid 1990s, and wanted to set something up that could be a creative specialist hub, with space to make our work, as well as other ceramic activities.

What kind of people come into Cyan Clayworks? Is there a typical client?

There’s a wide variety of people that come through the doors. Some of the main clients are the adult learners, who sign up for our classes or individual tuition. These are a wide range of individuals, some complete beginners, others who’ve got prior experience and want to learn more. There are one off workshops, and longer courses over a few weeks, and we cover all sorts of approaches to ceramic processes, including handbuilding, wheel throwing and surface decoration. Often people are looking for a new experience, or have always wanted to try ceramics. Sometimes they get a course as a present!

One of the other groups of clients include other artists and designers. These are often established professionals; in woven or printed textiles, painting and printmaking, or jewellery for example. As ceramics is a broad reaching subject, it can fit well with other creative disciplines. They can receive technical support, tuition, and work independently once they are familiar with the processes.

A third group of individuals are art and design students. These often come from ECA, GSA or further afield. As there are no dedicated ceramic degree courses left in Scotland, there is a real lack of provision for those wishing to learn ceramics. Gray’s School of Art offers a 3D design course which includes ceramics, and at Duncan of Jordanstone there are some facilities (and knowledgeable staff!) within the workshops. So for those students who want to learn more, they often come to us to get tuition, technical support and use of facilities. Again, their backgrounds are diverse- product design, sculpture, painting, textiles and jewellery.

Last year we received funding from Creative Scotland to pilot a new project. Part of this includes hosting new arts graduates in a structured placement, where they receive tuition, mentoring, workspace and materials for a month. We will also be hosting a more established guest artist from the US in May. This project will hopefully mark the beginnings of a bigger project...!

You must have seen a lot of great work come through your doors, are there any projects that are particularly memorable?

There have been many projects over the last three years. One of the most interesting was a project with a product design student, ongoing over about 6 months. He had researched making traditional pots in Ghana, and his project ended up being about recycling electronic waste products. So we worked with him to make moulds of old pc monitors and keyboards for casting forms, and handbuilding pots with incorporated electronic products (all finely ground up). We also made experimental glaze from recycled components.

We know that Cyan Clayworks is an artist-run social enterprise (which sounds pretty idyllic!) Are there any challenges in running an organisation in this way?

In terms of it being artist-run, this was really important for us, and a key feature of the studio. We draw on our years of experience to teach others, and people can learn in a real working studio, surrounded by other projects and our own work in progress.

Its definitely been challenging in many ways and a steep learning curve...! One of the main challenges is dividing up the time on our own practice from the studio work, and trying to minimise the admin and ‘behind-the scenes’ activities. Financially it was a challenge for the first year or so, as would be expected with a new business. We’ve also had to revisit and relearn things that we hadn’t done for many years, such as mould making. 

What’s it like being based in Edinburgh? 

Edinburgh’s definitely a good place to be based as an artist and to run a creative business. We’ve both worked in numerous locations, and this seems like a good place to be!

Thanks to Fiona for taking the time to speak with us. You can find out more about Cyan Clayworks here on their Make Works listing

If you're keen to find out more about ceramics you can read our guide to ceramics here, and you can see all the ceramics companies we have listed on Make Works here