Artists > Richard Ballantyne
Richard started his career at Bradford College of Art, studying interior design.
After retraining as a teacher in secondary schools he went on to become head of the Ceramics Department. He then started evening classes to keep one step ahead of his pupils. This started a lifetime love affair with ceramics.
Leaving full-time teaching and returning to university he completed a degree in glass and ceramics at High Wycombe and is now a full time ceramic artist, lecturing at High Wycombe University and Thames Valley University.
His ceramics are as varied as the British climate - work being both sculptural and functional, life size to miniature, from Raku to high fired porcelain. Exhibiting all over this country and abroad he has become a well known artist, with his work becoming highly collectable.
Being not only a pyromaniac but also a bit of a magpie, his work incorporates found objects in the sculpture - from ash from Mount St Helens in a glaze, to stones washed on the beach as plinths - telling everyone its own story.