A COUPLE who took the plunge by making pottery at their remote farmhouse and hawking it round potential customers are now exhibiting their ceramics to international acclaim.

Eddie and Margaret Curtis bought Middle Rigg at Ireshopeburn more than 20 years ago. Before that they lived at Seaham, though Mrs Curtis had family connections with Weardale.

Mr Curtis discovered the delights of working with clay after enrolling at Sunderland Polytechnic. He had intended to pursue a career as a draughtsman, thinking it would be a good job with regular money. "I had to decide whether to do a ceramics course and realised clay was a lovely medium to work in," he said.

Looking through college prospectuses, he was struck by the beauty of Corsham Court, part of Bath Academy of Art. "The Seaham of the 60s was very industrial and it was the surroundings of Corsham as much as the course that appealed," he said.

At the end of the course, having by then a a wife and baby daughter to support, he found a full-time job at Seaham Pottery, the remnants of the more famous Maling Pottery.

"I made dog bowls for the French market," he recalled. "I also made tiny bowls for hamsters and huge things for Great Danes. I stuck it for a year before deciding that if ever I was going to have a place of my own I needed to get some money together."

He obtained shift work at Cole's Cranes, and the couple saved as hard as they could. But in 1979 there was a property boom, and they found themselves continually being gazumped in their bid to buy a property.

Deciding they would have to look out of town, Mrs Curtis's eye was drawn to an advertisement in the Sunderland Echo for Middle Rigg. She knew Weardale from the days when she used to visit her grandmother's holiday cottage in the dale, and so their future was decided.

During the process of converting farm buildings into a workshop, Mr Curtis worked alone producing pots to sell, while his wife's time was committed to raising the two daughters they had by that time.

"We were cocooned in a buffer of driving ambition and absolute naivety," said Mr Curtis. "We knew nothing about marketing, we lived in rural isolation had no chance of supplementing our income. We were in at the deep end."

He decided to load his work into a Transit van and set off for the Lake District, touring shops for sales. "I had all the wrong numbers and came back with as much as I went with, but they must have liked what they saw because I came back with a book full of orders."

Though this was encouraging, being locked into fulfilling orders meant he had to put all his creativity into that side of the business, leaving no time to develop the individual style that is nowadays immediately recognisable to those interested in ceramics.

As their daughters Leyla and Hannah grew up, Mrs Curtis became increasingly involved in making pottery. She had always had an interest, and had often sneaked into Sunderland Polytechnic to work with her husband during his student days. But having no formal training, she had to work extremely hard to acquire throwing skills.

After visits to Japan, where ceramics is very much part of the culture, the couple now aim to create a mix of cultures; adapting traditional Eastern values and fusing them with Western contemporary style. Inspired, they decided to concentrate on work which featured more of their personal qualities.

They work in both porcelain and stoneware and, as their individual styles developed they tried to keep one step ahead, going for a much more upmarket theme than their previous pieces. As time has progressed, each has become more and more interested in making individual pieces of work - with every one thrown on the wheel.

Back from Japan, Mr Curtis had the conviction that he wanted to experiment with pushing classical proportions while working to create a feeling of elegance and serenity.

"Any artist who has ever lived wants to push out the perimeters," he said, and his resulting elongated pitchers and jugs show how he has achieved this. The swan-like necks are a particular difficulty. He uses a blowtorch to dry them out while striving to stop them collapsing.

His distinctive copper red glaze work is also difficult to achieve. A flame-fired kiln cuts the amount of oxygen and he then reintroduces it, with each stage critical in the oxidisation process. "It is very prone to failure," he said.

"When I open the kiln, it's either pure magic, with a small percentage absolutely fantastic, or a complete failure. I can still take stuff out of the kiln and think, Wow! That's lovely."

Copper red was discovered in China, but because it was so rare, it all went to the emperor. "I try to use ancient techniques and apply them to our own 21st century designs," said Mr Curtis.

Mrs Curtis's main interest is in making bowls and dishes, combining the artistic with the practical to create vessels for food. All the pottery which they use at home has been made either by themselves or is the work of other potters.

Her latest project is a square dish, a favourite shape, feeling that its subtlety makes it special. One of the largest jobs she ever undertook - and one which she does not want to repeat - was making tiles for the dining room floor in their home, nearly 1,000 in all, now greatly admired.

Her husband is working on large porcelain containers and finding it exciting as he has never embarked on anything as large before.

The couple, who reckon they now spend about half their time on marketing, have a busy year ahead. They will attend the annual Potfest in Penrith, at which potters are chosen on a first-come, first-served basis. But they are also going to four international ceramics markets on the continent by invitation only.

"Our work has developed considerably over the past 18 months and represents our way forward for some time to come," they said. "We will use the experiences gained from our porcelain production to re-evaluate our stoneware and vice versa."

Their elder daughter, Leyla, is also making a name for herself in the art world, being the youngest person to have sold a piece of work to Tate Modern; their younger daughter, Hannah, is studying biology at Northumbria University, but shows her artistic streak in creating pottery pigs.

Anyone wishing for further information about Mr and Mr Curtis can visit their web site at www.eddiecurtis.com where details of their work and the various venues it can be seen can be found.