Nicola Slaney

Having graduated from Staffordshire University in the summer of 1997, where she specialised in surface pattern design, Nicola started her career with Moorcroft in November 1997. She was soon represented in the 1998 catalogue with her Amazon Twilight vase. The vase was the run-away success of 1998. Hawthor’ was her next piece and was adopted by Liberty’s of London as an exclusive limited edition. After showing her portfolio to Hugh Edwards, she says, she did a couple of designs, then looked carefully at Moorcroft pots “and it just clicked.” Although not tied to one palette, she generally favours earthy, natural colours, perfect for getting the effect of twilight.

In May 1998, together with designer Emma Bossons, Nicola responded to a call to visit some of the exquisite tropical islands scattered across the South Pacific. Their mission was to encapsulate the Millennium in designs, which drew inspiration from time. From that simple theory, the idea of the Dateline Series was born. On the island of Tahiti, made famous as the first home of Fletcher Christian and the Bounty mutineers, Nicola took the elegant Perfume Tree for her inspiration. Drawn with a delicate colour palette, the Perfume Tree became Tahiti. Moorcroft’s Millennium plate was the most superb year plate to date.

After doing one sort of pot, Nicola finds it refreshing to create something entirely different, so we can expect the unexpected from this Moorcroft’s designer.

With the arrival of a new Millennium, came Nicola’s design ranges entitled, Anna, Fruit Garden and The Ashwood Hellebore together with her magnificent limited edition vase Jerusale’. Said by the many hardened and knowledgeable ceramists to be one of the finest vases to have emerged from Stoke on Trent in decades. The vase was massive by any definition. The shape was created to fit the design, and as a result the proportions are perfect. Line drawing alone took 16 weeks, while colour combinations were only finalised after a further 8 weeks of trials.