Born: 1937 in Dublin.

Studied at Alexandra College, Dublin; Belfast College of Art and Hornsey College of Art, London.

Anne James set up her ceramics workshop in Painswick, Gloucestershire in 1976 and began making domestic items in stoneware as well as individual decorative pieces in porcelain. In the 1980s she became interested in Raku, an ancient Japanese technique of decoration in which clay pots, after a first firing in a kiln, are placed in a container or second kiln with combustible material such as sawdust which ignites and creates random patterns of crazing, staining and iridescence. Before firing, James hand-burnishes her pots to create an elegant, smooth surface to which coloured clay slips are applied.

Her practice is informed by traditional pottery techniques used in African, Indian and Native American cultures and her study of ethnic textiles influences her approach to surface decoration.

She is a Fellow of Contemporary Ceramics and Member of Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen and the South Wales Potters Association.

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