An early interest in history and archaeology was engendered by my father who regularly took us on history and fossil walks. We would take our finds into Dudley Museum for identification, once finding a small fragment of a Trilobite that I was persuaded to leave behind at the museum. This has always been an important and fascinating source of inspiration to me with my studio in Woodsetton sitting on a piece of land strewn with silurian fossil, rocks and geodes collected by the previous landowner. I have also felt it important to understand the constituents of the clay and rocks that I am using to make my pots and glazes, and utilise materials collected from a radius around my studio.
Fossils are the enduring evidence of living organisms on earth and when looking for the same evidence of human activity we have to find materials of the same indestructible quality with bone, wood, fibres, glass and metal degrading across the ages. This leaves items such as worked flints and ceramic as our own time line markers. This enduring element of the oldest craft of pottery is what has kept me investigating its myriad of techniques and forms, and rediscovering what is possible within the medium.
With parents working in pewter my incorporation of metal with my ceramics was perhaps inevitable. However the combination of clay and metal has a long and local history with the most famous proponent being The Ruskin Pottery in Smethwick in the late 1800's.
I use metal only where it is essential practically or for the efficient functioning of the piece, and all my work is useful, which is an important element to me.
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