Process and technique

Most of my ranges develop initially through drawing, either from observation or from a remembered or imagined experience, sometimes a fleeting image. These sketches form a kind of starting point for the exploration of each piece, not usually an exact design. I work mainly using different stoneware clays, the landlines and recent wall-pieces use quite gritty, rough clay to form the basis of their craggy appearance, whilst the delicacy of porcelain provides a clean, smooth base for my jewellery designs. Sculptures and wall-pieces are usually built using flat slabs of clay, sometimes embedded with chunks of recycled, unfired glaze which brings more chance and unpredicability to the end-result, but the liveliness of the surfaces and ‘happy accidents’ repeatedly draw me back to this way of working. Some pieces, particularly the ‘Rockpool Boulders’ have ‘haiku’- style poems/thoughts impressed into their surface using metal letterpress. Each piece of work is fired at least twice, the final glaze firing to approx 1250C.