ZOE POTTER

I have always been an artist.

As a child, I was drawn to pen and paper by an unshakable need to create. I discovered knife making at 17, after first being captivated by blacksmithing—the fire, the ring of the anvil, and the experience of shaping a material at its most fundamental level. It felt like a found purpose, as if I had uncovered something essential that had been missing.

My path in knife making is best described as a conversation with materials. I specialise in cutlery and pattern-welded (Damascus) steel tools for food preparation. My process is intuitive: I listen to how materials want to come together, using a wide range of techniques and proportional design to treat aesthetics as a functional quality in its own right.

Each piece I create is part of an ongoing story. That story does not end when a knife leaves my workshop - it continues in the hands and lives of those who use it. These are not merely tools, but living things, shaped by process, intention, and the marks of the hand that guided them.

My motivation lies less in the finished object than in the act of making itself. Everything I create—knives, drawings, jewelry, swords, or paintings—belongs to a larger body of work that evolves alongside me. This work is deeply connected to memories of food and shared meals, and it is dedicated to those whose presence shaped my love of cooking and creation.

Blades have always fascinated me for their paradoxes: they must be thin yet strong, beautiful yet purposeful. Symbolically, knives represent change—through use, material, and transmission.

My work focuses on cutting in the kitchen, where cutting becomes an act of creation, nourishment, and giving life.