About

I am a maker – I like to make as an antidote to long hours spent on the computer and answering the phone for my 'day job', where being ‘productive’ has nothing to show for it at the end of the day. I love the ability instead to start with nothing but raw materials and then to have made ‘a thing’ – the beauty or monetary value is not important – the worth of a piece is in the care, time and imagination spent in its creation.

I first made pottery whilst I was at school (we were lucky enough to have a ceramics area in our art department!) - and on inspection of the creations that my Mum & Dad still have - the pieceswere pretty good!

Much like a lot of folks, I didn't consider art as a career - so I didn't put my hands back in clay until my late twenties when I started going to a local college evening class...

The 'Ceramics Level 1' course journeyed into level 2 and level 3 over the period of a few years. Inevitably I changed jobs and houses and couldn't carry on the evening classes, and so pottery was sporadic for quite a while (as well as being interrupted by a load of metal work needed in my right wrist due to a motorbiking accident).

Finally in 2016 we bought the property we are in now, and after some renovation work (that's still not finished...) I had a space that I could call 'The Pottery' - the first firing of the kiln in its new home was in August 2020.

My ceramics practice continues to evolve – functional ware now ends up with a phantasmagorical twist – mugs with unicorns, and clocks with time eating dragons - I blame too much reading of fairy tales as a child! Some of my favourites were The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien), Taran Wanderer (Lloyd Alexander), and The Faraway Tree (End Blyton), along with a big compendium of fairy tales and stories by Hans Christian Andersen. When you compound that with early 1980s kids TV - Dungeons & Dragons, Willo the Wisp, The Flumps, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, Inspector Gadget and Fraggle Rock - it's easy to see how my imagination easily gets away from me!

For a moment - enter my brain (yes, I know its scary!) - imagine yourself on a quest - you are a medieval knight, or a princess, or a sorcerer (it's up to you) - what might you encounter on your travels - what creatures might you find - what equipment will you carry - and what skills do you need? This is why I end up with fairy castles, unicorn mugs, mice on candlesticks and smoking dragons... (For 2024, somebody also 'might' have mentioned to me that it is the Chinese Year of the Dragon - so current preoccupations in clay are that way inclined!)

I also have a separate strand of work including the addition of woven material to both ‘finish’ and embellish a ceramic piece. The combination of ‘mud’ with natural materials, particularly those that I can harvest from the garden, melds with the sustainability focus that I have from my day-job – firing the kiln whilst using solar power is an added bonus.

The word 'weaving' means more than just entwining threads to form a fabric or a basket - it is also about entwining emotions, stories, thoughts and dreams. As part of this story-telling in the weaving, it has become important to me as to what material I am weaving with - so often the material is foraged - it has a sense of place in it, because I know where it comes from - whether that is daffodil leaves or dandelion stems collected from the garden, or garlic leaves or corn husks that I have grown in our veg plot.

Mostly, I hope that the pieces that I make, make somebody smile - and ideally spur on their imagination too!