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After spending four seasons serving as The Great Pottery Throw Down’s resident kiln tech Rose Schmits is hanging up her apron.
In case you’re not familiar with the British reality show, a quick recap: The Great Pottery Throw Down is essentially the pottery version of the beloved baking competition show The Great British Bake Off. Each season, several “home potters” from around the U.K. embark on a series of weekly ceramics challenges in their bid to become the country’s next “Top Potter.”
Since 2021, trans ceramic artist Schmits has worked as the show’s kiln tech. Kilns are thermally insulated chambers that are essentially used to fire clay, turning it into ceramic. In other words, she has been responsible for transforming contestants’ weekly projects into their finished forms.
The Great Pottery Throw Down’s official X account announced Schmit’s departure in an October 12 post, writing, “A massive thank you to @RoseKilnWitch who is leaving the show after four series as our kiln tech. Rose has fired everything from jugs to loos and done her utmost to protect the potters from the kiln gods. We wish you and your bow ties the best for the future.”
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Shortly afterward, Schmits quote-tweeted the post to explain that leaving the show was fully her decision.
“They did want me back but it just wasn’t worth it for me anymore,” she wrote, although she didn’t specify what exactly wasn’t worth it in the post itself.
However, Schmits took time to clarify that when it comes to her departure, transphobic trolling she’s received made no difference.
“So get rekt all you transphobes,” she added in a follow-up tweet. “You had absolutely nothing to do with it 😘.”
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Outside of her tenure on The Great Pottery Throw Down, Schmits is an accomplished London-based ceramics artist in her own right. As her official website notes, she draws from her native city of Delft in the Netherlands, putting her own spin on traditional Delftware pottery techniques. One of her most prominent series, the Crawler Pots collection, features porcelain vessels with spidery legs and tendrils, which she says “speak of bodies, transformation, sex, gender, monstrousness, and beauty.”
“I really like to put that experience of changing your body and really gaining ownership of it into my work,” Schmits explained in a 2022 video for the social enterprise Coin Street. “All my ceramic work is inspired by my identity as a trans woman… All my work misbehaves.”
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