Michel Ducos Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
Michel Ducos is a potter, sculptor and Art facilitator based in Alford, Lincolnshire. Having been a professional potter with his wife, Heather, since 1972 as Alford Pottery, for the last 20 years or so, ceramic sculpture has become an all engrossing activity which sits comfortably alongside the daily pottery work.
I am French by birth and British by choice as I came to England as a French Assistant, met Heather and never went back. We both helped in a pottery in London where we learnt the basics and have been very much self-taught ever since. My earliest experience of sculpting, although I didn’t know it at the time, was carving shapes and faces with a pocket knife out of large pieces of plaster “found” in bombed out houses during the Algerian war in the late 1950’s.
My sculpture work nowadays is mainly in paperclay which I make out of recycled clay from the pottery and recycled newspapers. I tend to work in series to a theme, to develop the form, either from my imagination or for a project or prompted by current events and as a socio-political commentary. I am interested in the contrast between soft and hard and enjoy reproducing soft materials (leather, hessian, cloth...) in hard fired clay, very much in the trompe l’oeil style. I also make a lot of buildings from tiny houses to metre high castles.
I enjoy working in repurposed and recycled materials for my more contemporary and often controversial pieces and so far I’ve used mobile phones, Zimmer frames, insulation boards, metal, plaster and plastic goods. I am lucky that many people buy or commission my work and it is collected in the UK, the US and Europe and, although I do show in events and galleries, only if I like the project. I have founded and run many Arts and Crafts organisations and events and even the odd Community Project like the 1200 terracotta birds in Alford. It’s always worth having a chat.
