Inspiration

My work falls into two distinct camps- namely wheel thown pots and hand formed slab built work. I began strictly as a hand builder, with throwing developing alongside over the years.

Handbuilt work stems from paper or card templates which I use to cut clay slabs to shape. These are dried and draped over formers til leather hard. The finished pieces tend to keep a certain 2 dimensional line and form, albeit with sculptural and architectural overtones. In turn these initial forms have developed into a range of different vessels which I have continued to develop over the years.

I would say that my pots and sculptures owe to Modernism as well as more traditional archaic styles of Pottery. I don't tend to decorate them as such, although I layer glazes and detail certain areas to accentuate the forms. For inspiration I enjoy visits to galleries and museums. Equally a trip to the beach to study weather beaten wooden groynes or sea weed encrusted piers or boat hulls can be fascinating!

I am as fascinated by sculptors work such as Barbara Hepworth or Richard Serra and their use of materials- as I am by potters like Alan Foxely, Eddie Curtis, Stephen Murfitt, Ken Matzuzaki, Jason Wason. Pots can be sculptural and exciting, so I make no distinction between the two genres really. Clay is a tremendous mimic of materials, and I enjoy exploiting that.

In more recent years I have become re-engaged with the Japanese pottery tradition. It is not something I consciously try to imitate, but certainly it has influenced the immediacy and tactile nature of my current work. The visceral nature of Raku still thrills me some twenty years on. I am still learning and taking risks with the process, and it feels like there are plenty more discoveries to be made.