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Five ceramic artists – Clare Twomey, Barnaby Barford, Phoebe Cummings, Lucille Lewin and Malene Hartmann Rasmussen – come together to discuss the way they work and the role that craftsmanship plays in their practice.

These artists approach making in distinct ways. They discuss how they work holistically, going beyond descriptions of technique to think about the way they set about the whole business of making: Where do they draw their ideas from? How do they develop their ideas? What role does the material clay and the discipline of ceramics play in this process? Do they ‘think through materials’, as Barnaby Barford suggests, or do they think, draw and then make; or are processes so honed and familiar that the ideas can freewheel beyond the traditional bounds of the discipline? Which is the really hard part of the whole process? And how does that hard work relate to play?

Among the questions they also broach is the fundamental question, What is the artwork? Is the artwork the object I make or are the objects I make the material catalyst for the real artwork which is something else – ‘a cultural provocation’, in Clare Twomey’s words, or an exercise in empathy, or an installation, or a performance or a kind of story telling? What role does the audience play in completing or amplifying the artwork? And how would these artists define and describe their ‘craft’?

The conversation is moderated by the writer and journalist Emma Crichton-Miller, editor of The Design Edit.