Lisa Hammond has for many years been committed to making and teaching SALT and SODA vapour glaze studio pottery. Her work embraces an extensive range of thrown functional ware for the preparation, cooking and serving of food. She also produces a range of individual work that is fundamentally functional whilst challenging the user to be more inventive as to its use. The forms are strong fluid and unfussy, and aim to preserve the soft plasticity of the clay. Work is often altered to achieve the final form soft on the wheel. Lisa has experimented with clay, slips, soda glaze and kiln firing to produce a seemingly endless palate of colour and surface.
Fascinated with pots from a young age, she consolidated her training at a studio pottery course in Kent. She set up her first studio in 1980 whilst teaching at Goldsmiths College. Following the 1994 closure of Goldsmiths, Lisa set up Maze Hill Pottery in a disused ticket office in Greenwich, London, where she trained many apprentices over the years and brought pottery to a wider audience through the teaching of weekly evening and weekend courses. In 2009, she opened a new studio at Kigbeare, Devon, where she carries on the principles of Maze Hill but with extra space to train apprentices and to run more extensive workshops and masterclasses with invited guest potters from overseas.
Lisa has lectured, worked and exhibited in Japan. Inspired by Mino Ware pots, she also works with Shino glaze alongside her soda glaze work.