"Grab any opportunity that comes to you"

Before Emma Bossons opened the new Burslem Arts unit on Queen Street last October, she gave an interview to Local Edition about life as a world-renowned designer for Moorcroft.

YOUNG, beautiful and successful, the only thing that saves Emma Bossons from a life of envious looks is the fact that she’s very nice. As a mentor figure for the artists exhibiting their work at Burslem Arts, in many cases for the first time, she’s pretty unbeatable. Because Moorcroft have a tendency to get you to look round the shop before meetings, I’m feeling fairly awestruck by the time I meet her. But it’s quickly clear that she hasn’t let ten years of hype get to her and she has a generous spirit which newer Burslem artists will appreciate.

Emma’s career started as a YTS trainee painter on £40 a week at Wedgwood, painting endless tea sets. At the weekend, she was working in a restaurant where she would also exhibit her watercolours. “People thought they were good but not many people ever bought them. A relative knew about Moorcroft and thought I might be able to work for them, but I’d never heard of them. I came into the factory shop one day and that was it, I thought ‘I have to work here’.” She wrote a letter to Moorcroft the next day and soon afterwards was taken on as a trainee. After just over a year, Emma became one of the founders of Moorcroft’s new design studio and their youngest ever designer.
So what is it like being a designer for Moorcroft? “It’s a great job. I’m going to South Africa next week where we’ll do some signings and then we’ll do some research – I haven’t been to Africa before so I’m looking forward to that.”

The ongoing sale of Moorcroft has been unsettling, she says, but she is glad the pottery will stay in Stoke. Most of all, she says she will miss Hugh Edwards. “For the past ten years I’ve gone to him with ideas for designs and we’ve gone over them together.”

Designing is a collaborative process and Emma works in watercolours, rarely painting directly onto pottery. Watercolours give her a similar look to the eventual design, but there are several more stages to go through and she works closely through the process with all the different craftspeople at the factory. Usually she is happy with the results!

Emma will undoubtedly be a figure of inspiration for the artists at Burslem Arts. She advises new artists to “just grab any opportunity that comes to you. There are far more opportunities here than where I grew up in Congleton. Keep trying new things.”. –

To see how Moorcroft pottery is made, visit the museum and heritage centre on Sandbach Road.