Janine Partington
I am now a full-time maker with outlets including The Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracey, The Craft Centre and Design Gallery in Leeds, Studio One in Edinburgh, The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle, the Cider Press Centre in Dartington and the Gallery on the Square in St Ives.
In 2012 I embarked on my first public commission for Frenchay Hospital in Bristol creating a wall of over-sized enamelled leaves and seedheads cascading down the surface of an outer wall of an inner courtyard in one of the hospital buildings.
I was elected as a member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in 2007, becoming a Trustee in 2014. I became a full member of the British Society of Enamellers in 2009 and an Associate Craftsman member of The Guild of Enamellers in 2011.
I moved out of my home studio in 2015 to a large single studio in BV Studios in Bristol. This has meant that I have to plan my work schedule more carefully as I cannot now work at any time of the day or night as I had previously been doing. However, I still have my studio at home where I do design work and all the administration and packing up of orders.
Artist Bio
Growing up in Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire I was surrounded from birth by the smell of oil paint and a knowledge that creativity was a very important part of life.
My Sri Lankan mother Ione had studied ceramics at North Staffordshire Polytechnic as a mature student and met my father Enos there. He was one of the part-time Fine Art and Ceramics lecturers. Whilst my mother never made any ceramics after I was born – the beauty and grace of the pieces that she had made were always on display in our home.
My father, principally a fine art painter, became a full-time lecturer after I was born and when I was one we all moved into the rambling Victorian semi in Wolstanton where they still live. It was here on the ground floor of our home where he established his extensive studio. Our lives were dictated by his need for space to create – don’t ask if he still paints, you might as well ask if he still breathes – and we lived on the first and second floors of our house. Though I drew and created like any other child, I never thought that one day it would become my career, and though I studied Art at O-level I did not excel and did not pursue art in any serious form.