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Encouraged by family members, Jill Fanshawe Kato started drawing at an early age.
Her interest in the natural world was awakened at the age of ten, when her family moved from Nottingham to the small Devonshire village of Kingskerswell, near Torquay. She cared for numerous injured or orphaned wild birds and animals and had a tame jackdaw which stayed for 3 years before returning to the wild. Thus started her lifelong love of nature which can be seen today in her ceramics.Travel to Spain, Asian countries, Brazil, to mountains and tropical islands such as the Maldives and Okinawa have all acted as sources of inspiration for Jill’s ceramics.
She graduated in Painting from Chelsea School of Art, London, then gained an Art Teacher’s Certificate. After a period of teaching she had the opportunity to visit Tokyo in Japan.
Jill’s ceramics are inspired by the natural world and by travel. Making processes include coiling, slabbing, sculpting, using moulds and throwing and altering. Slips and glazes are applied for colour, which she constantly experiments with. She uses a range of stoneware clays and is currently experimenting with additions of River Dart clay, fired to 1270 degrees c. in a Laser gas kiln. Some raku pottery is also made.
Work ranges from functional pottery for Japanese cuisine to large sculptural commissions.