My work is inspired by ancient techniques and exploring my connection to landscapes. Places like the Outer Hebrides and Wales and many other ancient places have had huge significance within my work.
I work in my little home studio in Harrold, Bedfordshire, but I mainly fire my collections nestled in the Welsh hills near Llanafanfawr at my Great Aunts old farm cottage, a place which is very close to my heart.
The methods I use when creating my pieces have been used by human beings since the beginning of time. Back in the neolithic ages when people had a stronger sense of intuition with the land they lived in, being a part of it.
My vessels are all hand-built using coils of clay and my bare hands. The affinity I feel with the clay when I am doing this has become a really sacred thing to me. I have a direct relationship with the material and it is this relationship which is responsible for the forms produced.
I often feel that it is the clay that decides what it will become, I am just part of the process, manipulating and moulding it into being.
Similarly, the firing process is about working with the unpredictability of the elements, but also the magic of learning how to coexist with and utilise them. I fire my work in collections, digging a large pit in the ground and dressing the pots with natural combustable materials to create surface texture. The vessels are not glazed, the surface patterns are created by the fire. It is a celebration of magic and alchemy, and what it feels like to be in the hands of nature.
