I make my work from porcelain clay because I enjoy its potential for mark making and for its bone-like unglazed finish. I build by hand and enjoy the tension this creates in the clay, which causes shifts and subtle cracking in the firing, giving the finished pieces the ancient feeling of the archaeological artefacts that inspire me. I celebrate imperfection, variation and difference - no two pieces are the same.
The figures and the other curiosities I make are the expression of the stories I want to tell. They are about the physical space my body occupies and the psychic space my mind inhabits. My work emerges from my imagination, informed by archetypal imagery and the collective unconscious, by myth and magic and being human. It speaks of the earth, of the sea and stars, of my ancestors and of our connection to all beings.
I graduated from Falmouth College of Arts, Studio Ceramics in 2000 and had a busy practice which I gave up fifteen years ago to dedicate myself to a career in art therapy. The clay kept calling me back and during lockdown I commandeered the garden shed and dusted off my kiln.
The Bathers, Goddesses and Tall Figures celebrate my love of the sea, the earth and the wild. My Winged Figures remember the stories my grandfather told me of his dreams that he could fly, my dreams are of being under the sea, this is where we meet.
Human beings have always needed rituals, making Shrines and Altars satisfies this for me. They are made gently from soft rolled slabs of porcelain clay and are tricksy to fire but I enjoy them so I keep making. ’In our blood and in our bones we carry all their songs - healing the ancestors’. These are an exploration into a way of making meaning of ourselves and our ancestral legacies.
The fabric and lace I have always used to make marks in the clay, come from my grandmothers - many bits have been mine for half a century and some pieces may be more than a hundred years old. I love their fragility and how I can reproduce and preserve the essence of each little bit in clay. My grandmothers taught me to make do and mend, that was their craft and I honour them by making my craft my work too.
