About
Ruth’s practice centres on the vessel form. She builds clay vessels using coil-building techniques that date back to matriarchal Neolithic pottery cultures, and her work makes ongoing reference to the female ceramic record. Her approach to clay focuses on its materiality; she explores its possibilities and resistances. Her intention is that the meditative focus of making, the union of energy and calm, is somehow retained in the work.
Her mark making is intentional. Working with metal tools, she creates movement and texture on surfaces that become highly responsive to light. The work is smoke fired in metal firing bins with sustainably sourced wood shavings. As a result, the vessels acquire rich and varied surfaces, suggestive of light and dark.
Ruth’s affinity with clay has been lifelong. After studying in the Midlands in the 1980s, she established studios firstly in Derby and then in rural Southwest Scotland where she continues to live and work.
Ruth has exhibited widely in the UK for many years and is currently represented by London gallery Ruup & Form, showing in their Winter Exhibition 2023 in Shoreditch and at The London Art Fair 2024. She is also represented by Brown’s Gallery in Inverness and was selected by Craft Scotland to show at Collect 2023.
Ruth is a passionate educator and has taught ceramics and sculpture in Further Education for most of her career. She has inspired many students to pursue careers in ceramics and continues this work through mentoring and community engagement work.
She is currently developing large sculptural vessels balancing inner volume and outer form and looks to achieve the stillness of a quiet holding or containing space. “…mindfulness is evident in the large moon-jar, quiet pots by Ruth Elizabeth Jones, whose forms seem to carve into the surrounding space.” Corinne Julius, journalist, broadcaster, critic, and curator.
