matter - made of place
the material nomad
my freelance work takes me around the world, meaning i spend time away from my home and workshop. this has had a major influence on my ceramic practice and how i make. travelling to many different countries i am often away for weeks at a time - this nomadic lifestyle is both transient and temporal in nature and over the years i have embraced the idea of being rooted in the rootless, taking inspiration for my ceramic practice from the places i have travelled and the cultures i have experienced.
when a place has a particular meaning or story for me, i endeavour to collect materials specific to that event or location. ashes from a fire or debris from a building. through this material gathering, i interpret the physical and emotional connections. the materiality within a piece creates a tangible connection between myself, and moments in time, embedding a sense of place, within the ceramic forms - connecting my nomadic life with my ceramic making.
raw materials
initially the materials are in a raw stage and so i take them through a refinement process before i begin to add them into the clay. if wet i begin the process by letting the materials dry out thoroughly. the materials are then crushed, which can take a large amount of energy as some of the materials begin life as larger rocks. once crushed it is then washed, and rinsed through. then the material is divided into different particle sizes from fine dust to larger particulate, giving varying results through the making and firing activities.
empirical
i then add the processed materials into the clay. here i will also vary the amounts added as this changes the density of material. then the clay is ready to use and testing begins. the materials are added to different clays and fired at varying temperatures, with and without glazes so that i can try to understand how the clay and material will respond and what the end result will be.
alchemy
my whole making process is one of alchemy. gathering simple materials and combining these with clay to create unique pieces of still life, installation or one-off forms. identifying place by capturing time or storytelling, through the materiality of the piece i give some permanence to those ephemeral moments.
england - helsby
iceland - land of fire and ice
scotland - isle of skye
lithuania - vilnius
england - manchester, london road fire station
