ABOUT
artist
workshops
teacher
My own clay work comes from a love of material, processes and interactions with people, the workshops bring these together. Through workshops I seek to create a setting for the participants to explore material, have fun and reflect.
I have run workshops all around the UK, Germany and Canada. I have worked with all ages groups from babies to adult, in school, university, church, professional, informal and art gallery settings.
I have a PGCE in Post Compulsory Education but have taught throughout the age groups in a variety of countries and settings, including India, Germany the UK. I have taught in Prisons, Further Education Colleges, Boarding schools, Secondary schools and to soldiers. As Assocaite Artist for firstsite in Colchester I researched Learning Methodolgies in the gallery setting. As a teacher I have worked in range of culturally diverse places am passionate about the potential of the individual to develop and surpirise themselves with achievement.
.
My work grows out of my love of clay. Working with a combination of coiling and Slab-building, I produce evermore simplified, sculptural work combining the lives of people I meet with the colours, textures and forms in the landscape.
I continue to balance figurative pieces and the more abstract forms of pebbles that I study. For me they are both about capturing a fragment of a story or a moment in time.
I see my ceramics as coming from nature and returning to nature which is what has led me to my pebble work in which I have been collecting pebbles from the beaches of Suffolk, drawing them, studying them and looking to add discipline to my building techniques by replicating them. My aim is to convey their form and the wonder and excitement of finding them.
I have had the priviledge of living and working with some amazing, inspiring people around the world. These people, their stories and the moments we have shared are what inspire my figurative work. I believe strongly in the power of communty and unity in diversity, my figures, often women, share spaces and relate to each other.
I love drawing and painting and I look for raw, matt painterly surfaces in the decoration of my ceramics. I fire at both earthenware and stoneware, using multiple firings and raw glazing to add depth to my mark making.