The Kiln Opens
I produce a kiln of new work once a month. The output is always different as I push forward with a variety of materials and develop my work.
Pottery Marks
My personal mark is SC with 4 dots (1).
My personal studio mark shows the studio against our much larger house (2).
My early studio mark shows the two Georgian buildings of the Great Linford courtyard where I learnt to throw (3).
My Story
I began as a builder in clay but now I mainly throw on the wheel. I grew up in Yorkshire and learnt to build in clay at night school in Barnsley. Twelve years ago, after a B Ed degree in the arts, I took up making pottery again at the Linford Arts Centre in Milton Keynes where I learnt to throw.
I find inspiration from the role that pottery held in earlier times. This is not nostalgia but a wish to benefit from the skills those potters possessed working with a vital technology of their time.
Milton Keynes is founded on a Roman town. Astride Watling Street you can still find Roman pot sherds and even decorated Samian ware. Roman pottery is an inspiration but so too are Cornish pots.
Cornish influences help to bring a variety of times and places together. Cornish Iron Age potters bring an early rough force to bear whilst the modern Leach tradition traces to Japan. I once met Janet Leach at the St Ives Leach Pottery and she is one of the potters I most admire, partly for her materials, but also for her work’s Gemacht quality.
Working with an Artist
I have worked with the St Ives artist Tony Shiels (b.1938) to provide ceramic bodies for him to decorate with ceramic paints.
These have been shown in Exhibitions in Penzance and in Marazion. Recently some have been sold in the David Lay fine art auction.
