I am drawn to making techniques that celebrate a pot’s journey, revealing the maker’s hands and the wheel, the essence of a hand-made vessel.  In the past ‘mark making’ tended to the precise, using turning machinery. In my own approach I have crafted wooden tools that I use to throw the pot on the wheel, while the clay is wet. This evokes the marks of turning, the softness and spinning of the clay on the wheel, and reveals the story of its making on the finished piece. The profiles on these tools are mostly influenced by architectural detail on buildings I have visited over the years, but the effect of the banding they create on the pots I find particularly rewarding, suggesting on the one hand support, protection, safety and security, but at other times perhaps a constraint, confinement or caging; at the same time referencing earlier ceramic, silver and pewter forms. 

My work focuses on the familiar, taking it forward with a dash of humour and an oblique nod to its source. At its best I feel this approach produces freshness and vibrancy, and the everyday can become something unique and individual, with its own character. I am most happy with a finished piece that makes me smile, that might be an old friend and that I find myself seeking out.

I make salt glazed porcelain and stoneware, thrown and finished on the wheel, sometimes altered and assembled, including functional as well as one-off decorative or sculptural pieces.  I strive to make each piece an individual, including when part of a series, such as mugs, bowls or cups.

In my youth I collected (mainly damaged) Chinese Kangxi and 18C European porcelain, regularly visiting Portobello and Bermondsey Market at 6am.  My making came later, but I feel it is influenced by the pieces I bought, studied and have loved over the years. These pots have of course been themselves influenced by earlier ceramic, silver and pewter forms. 

Salt-glazing is desperately hard work, but for me it produces a shine and texture that can’t be matched.  It offers great potential with its characteristic texture of subtle or heavy orange peel.   Salt-glaze is perfectly transparent and does not remove the banding and mark making on my pieces.