Simon Rich has worked from his Narberth Pottery in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales since 1972 following training at Aldermaston with Alan Caiger-Smith from 1965 to 1969.

Having worked in stoneware he now specializes in creating porcelain pieces, with a variety of glazes and techniques – notably crystalline, terra sigilata and raku.

Simon is primarily concerned with creating pleasing shapes and forms, conjuring up images in his mind and turning them over and over until they are ready to be brought into being.

He likes to explore the full potential of any one shape, developing it and endeavouring to expand on its creative potential as much as possible whilst stopping short of extremes, as his aim is to create pottery of classical and harmonious beauty.

Simon excels at many techniques including copper fumed raku, turquoise and azurite glazes and crystalline glazes.

In the latter, the zinc crystal glaze is applied to porcelain and is made by melting sand, soda ash, alumina, zinc and flint into a glass compound which is then ground to a fine powder.

Before glazing, an exact amount is weighed out for each pot and metal oxides are then added to produce the variety of colours that can be seen in the work & the firings vary according to the amount of colourant oxides and glaze adjustments.

In this way Simon produces constantly evolving glazes on the pieces, making each one unique.