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Sabri Ben-Achour started taking pottery classes when he was 12 after his mom signed him up at a small studio in Missouri. Born in France to parents from Tunisia and New Zealand, he is an avid traveler whose wanderings have taken him to places as varied as Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2000, Sabri discovered Hinckley Pottery and Hinckley Pottery discovered Sabri. He began first as a student, then joined the studio’s work-study program and ultimately became an apprentice teacher under Jill Hinckley. He now teaches the Wednesday evening classes and subs for his fellow instructors. Sabri is continually trying new things with clays and glazes, and has developed his own type of raku firing (the experimenting cost him one of his kilns but luckily not much else). His distinctive work has been featured in craft shows and galleries throughout the Washington area. In his other life, Sabri received his Masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and works as a reporter for American University Radio.
“My work is influenced by a strong appreciation for organic forms, things that ideally look ‘as if they grew that way’ or were perhaps dug up out of the ground after being formed and aged by the elements. I find the organic aesthetic comes in two forms. One is based on using the natural expression of a material’s properties: clays that crack naturally in certain patterns, glazes that pit, crawl, or split open in a chaotic but consistent way based on the physics of their components. The other is a bit more difficult - it is the aesthetic of natural geometry. Forms in nature often drip with mathematical structure - Fibonacci sequence in sunflowers, polyhedral-looking diatoms. This is so because such things in nature unfold according to natural laws. It’s difficult to approximate or capture that when humans try to go at it from a very intentional - replicating approach. But if successful I think it can create a very satisfying union or at least harmony between man and nature.” |
