Back – through the unknown remembered gate

Looking at the past serves to inform the future.

Points of reflection come when things change providing frames of reference.

The divisions, layers, cracks, joints and lines are symbols of change, ‘landmarks’ for evolution.

We need those boundaries and boarders, intersections and connection points, where times change and sections separate in order to evaluate beginnings and endings.

Really looking forward to North Yorkshire Open Studios as the first time anyone will be able to see the new work in action!

11th, 12th 13th, 19th & 20th June

Bold yet simple forms frame the clay’s natural qualities; light enhances the surface flaws and the physicality of the surface. Inspired by natural environment I aim to engage the viewer with the fragility, strength and beauty of the laminated clays and the delicacy of surface, evidence of clay’s intimate memory.

Change comes in many ways through the making and the firing to the light, environment and natural aging as each piece finds its place. My favourite pieces, indoors or out, feel like a breath of fresh air; that like a long view connects me to the sea or landscape.

Clays

The starting point and backbone of my work is the clay itself how it responds and reacts, its own colours, texture & surface, earth the natural environment, geology of landscape, its space & surroundings and evidence of past human habitation. Inherent qualities of the natural world are strength, beauty & fragility.

Each piece uniquely engages with its space and surroundings which are often the source of inspiration. My work aims to engage the viewer with the strength and beauty of the clay and the delicacy of its surface. Clay has a memory. In the making process it holds every print or touch of tool and hand; incidental, accidental, design deliberate or necessary. The (almost sacrificial) firing process is where this memory is finally made solid; from here is no going back. Reactions to the building process I deliberately invoke involve the crackling of the fine surface clays through my laminating process and the more extreme cracking and breaking apart of the clay, both of which provoke a response. At times I scantily apply and wipe away stains and oxides to enhance the surfaces to make them more available.

Everything leads somewhere.

Real and metaphorical or historical paths, cycles, seaonal, annual, life paths, attitudes, mindshifts; all layers and lines.

Opportunities for blog posting have been thin on the ground for sometime, but Hooray! A conversation in June with my wonderful partner has freed me from the static magnet of sitting behind a pc for 3 days a week, not to mention the 3 hr round trip.

Don’t read me wrong here, I do miss the fun, friendly banter and connecting with like minded community artists, consulting them and supporting when needed. But as I said months ago – the time has come for me to make my own work again – at last.

Thank you Lee x

July 31st and I am full-time self employed. So, where is the work? Good news: I have a website on the way, an e-commercial one, which will sell pieces of various sizes, off the shelf and bespoke too, also having an archive of my public work. Commercialism? I heard that thought. I am an artist designer. My inspiration at times is overwhelming and I see no contradiction with wanting to share what I do. To encourage ways to find peace in the mentally & physically binding world of other people’s chaos.

I have made a down payment on a kiln(!) which comes with loads of other equipment and is single phase so i won’t be putting the street lights out!

I’ve been making room for the shed load of kit in my wee studio space; cutting down work top for the slab roller, exciting to me as it involves power tools with being in my studio & planning for the future too.

To keep me going til the new pieces are photographed here are some taken over the summer of developments in the garden and especially the waterfall, to which we have added a natural bio filter of gravel & reeds.

Blog postings should come much more regularly from now on!! ;)

Much clearing & shifting, initially identifying areas for the sculptures to go.

Ist job siting old pieces. Reminded 'there is no such thing as a weed, only a plant in the wrong place'.

With much huffing & puffing up the 45degree slope, a greenhouse has now appeared at the top of the garden.

The site for the oldest pieces, originating from my degree show is close into the wild hedge outside my studio window on some uncovered ancient shelf-like terraces amongst wild strawberries, foxgloves & a rudbekia similarly transplanted from my previous life, that will grow in around the pieces as the year goes on.

The next pieces sit alongside them. Refined versions that rest & simplify the complex surfaces of the old ones.

Unearthing shards of broken pottery has inspired sculptures to be made for the garden. Grabbing my imagination are the combination of age crackled, shiny glazed surfaces & dirty broken edges with tactile curves, historically inside the original creamy buff coloured pot. I visualise their macro cosmic gowth into large scale pieces. Occasionally these finds miraculously fit together. An event which brings a strange joy and fits well with the necessary aspect of putting sections of sculptures together, due to the restrictions of kiln size.

'Modernist' constructivist tendencies layer found/ discovered objects, marks & previous lives inspired by & interacting with place & space. Like the garden, offering intriguing interludes from the craziness of 21st century living.

A start has been made! Now to get some new work fired – Crescent Arts are having the new extraction fitted this month – so at last!