Events


2026

March - April

Material Response - Expanding Periphery Materials in a research project collaboration with Sunken Studio and the University of Leeds  2025
22 August


13 September    GreenEconomy Networking Event 
Speaking about Periphery Materials 

Speaking about Periphery Materials at Sunken Studio Open Day  17-21 September
Exhibiting Periphery Materials research at Material Matters, London Design Festival2 October



22 October Attending Clay Conference: From Waste to Resource: Circular Economies For Construction Clay Spoil

Speaking at SAIL Creative Climate Conversations 2025 17-19 OctoberSelected for RDI Summer Sessions at Dartington Hall

Last Updated 05.03.26
Chris Crawford



Potter, designer and materials researcher based in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Moving toward less extractive, lower carbon ways of designing, making and building things.

I believe that the most interesting work happens at the intersections—between art and science, craft and industry, design and engineering. 

Painting, researching, throwing, teaching, 3D printing - I am not interested in ‘staying in my lane’. 

I enjoy big challenging problems and fresh ideas.

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Selected Projects

Contact

Bio & CV
Selected Projects






Periphery MaterialsResearch. Exhibiting at LDF 2025
July 2025Periphery Materials is an ongoing research project I have been developing for the past year.

Using recycled clay as its anchor, it explores the potential of local waste materials and power of creative cross-disciplinary collaboration. 

Full Report



Iron based glazes at Sunken Studio2022
A project built on creative constraint. 

Many of the transition metal colouring oxides used in ceramics are mined in highly questionable conditions causing all kinds of social and environmental damage. 

This project looks to explore Iron as one of the most abundant and least harmful of the metal oxides we use in ceramics. 

By changing the surrounding chemistry of the glaze - different colour expressions were developed. 





Periphery Materials Print 2025
A collaboration with Estudio Los Domingos.

I knew I wanted to produce something as a summary of my research. After so much time and effort going into the materials themselves - I wanted the report itself to be something tactile and beautiful. 

I was also aware when producing something physical in the world there is pressure both to consider how it is made, and that it offers something beyond what a digital experience can offer. 

While I felt confident I could produce the photography I have less experience with graphics. I wanted to collaborate with someone who could really bring this project to another level. Martina and Lucia from Estudio Los Domingos were fantastic to work with and picked up on the brief straight away. We worked on a booklet for the research report as well as a folding insert covering the resource mapping and material index (this also double as a display index for the exhibition). I am so grateful to them for their work and passion for the project. 

I was also super happy to find PRINT.WORK in Leeds who did a fantastic job of printing everything on a beautiful tactile paper stock made from 100% recycled agricultural waste. 



Ceramics
Porcelain & Slip Developed while studying on the DCCOI Pottery Skills course in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland 2016-2018. 

Searching for marking making that is truly spontaneous and free from hesitation. 

This work felt a bit like learning how to be myself.

Eutectic glaze made from porcelain trimmings and wollastonite. Porcelain slips made thick and viscous in an effort to emulate oil paints. 




Oil PaintingOngoing
Important because it’s something that is just for me. 

My own ceramic work was inspired by painters like Mark Rothko and Gehardt Richter. Before making marks on clay I tried them out on paper, walls, workbenches - whatever surface was to hand. I learned to enjoy that process from stretching paper to building layers of colour - which meant something to me, if not to anyone else. 

I enjoy the energy and spontaneity and the risk of something being bad, but doing it anyway. The feeling you get just before you start as much as the outcome you get at the end.