Grandscale garden glory

Handmade customised ceramic vases with statuesque splendour

“Clay is amazing,” says ceramicist Philip Simmonds of the material he uses to craft bespoke urns and large-scale decorative pots. The Devon-based artist – who is a Chelsea Flower Show award winner for outstanding presentation – has carved a unique niche in the garden design arena, and his sculptural pieces can be found in spaces from London town-house gardens to the courtyards of palaces in the United Arab Emirates.

Indeed, with his predilection for traditional shapes with a contemporary sensibility, Simmonds’ pots make stunning centrepieces for a variety of settings. Strong, clean lines and hues that range from bronze to deep green to iridescent blue, allow his work to make an impact amid rolling hills and urban, architectural environments alike.

The process of creating the right piece for a particular location often begins with a look at his past projects – at the designs, colour schemes and textural possibilities exhibited in his Grecian urns and massive vases inspired by Cornish beach stones – such as the “serious and serene” Trust (£3,000-£5,500) and the “grandiose and statuesque” Majestic (£20,000). These exquisite objets d’art measure from 80cm in height to an impressive 1.7m, with spiraling stripes, concentric ripples and personalised messages ensuring that no two pieces are alike.

Simmonds works in specially blended British clay and he coils, throws and hand-builds each piece from scratch. Every grand pot is fired twice – with the second firing designed to enhance the nuances of colour as well as variations in glaze.

With Simmonds’ work much in demand – and with each vessel requiring meticulous attention to detail – commissions take between eight and 12 weeks to complete. And to ensure the personal experience runs consistently from beginning to end, he prefers to deliver and install the work himself, right down to the Bath stone plinths.