About

In my work I am emphasising and celebrating our human need to make, through figurative, vessel and container-like forms. I choose methods that utilise my own hand articulation that bridge clay and fibre processes, paying great attention to detail, to heighten the level of attention that I want the viewer to notice about the importance of connecting to hand skills.

I come from a family of makers and grew up around industrial production but lost my connection with making over a twenty year period whilst working in the corporate sector. By engaging with the history of making in the area where I live, I reconnected with my own half-forgotten craft skills, giving me a renewed sense of belonging and identity as a maker.

I draw inspiration from traditional craft processes to inspire surface pattern and design, using repetitive movements found in glove-making and weaving to impress and embellish the clay, echoing production line and factory processes. I score through the repeated layers of pattern to bring a sense of history to the surface, to value my own skills as a maker and in doing so, the skills of makers throughout history.

Where possible I make every element of a piece from leather-like colours made with earth pigments to handmade paperclay. I work intuitively and spontaneously pushing the boundaries of working with clay to keep my skills alive, by moving them forward in dynamic new directions. This brings me great joy and reinforces my identity as an innovative contemporary maker.

In 2016, I created the Arts Council–funded milestone series ‘Hand to Hand’, investigating glove-making processes, which laid the foundation for  ‘Crossing the Line’ (2017) and the ‘Coldharbour Mill’ Collection (2020).

My work has been exhibited at venues including Burton Art Gallery & Museum, Bideford, Thrown Contemporary, London, Black Swan Arts, Frome and Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery.