realising ideas - from ceramic landscapes to new forms and collections
Designing New Ceramics
Whilst I love the comfortable nature of Heritage Pottery, I also enjoy the challenge of developing new work and answering questions with it. As a maker, I feel there is a responsibility to work as a designer to not only push one's own work and practice, but to also examine the contexts that we live in and develop work that reponds to this environment, comments on it, and even addresses particular needs.
Sea and Sky Collection
Sea and Sky is an eclectic and engaging collection of contemporary Blue and White ceramics
that speaks in a fresh way, taking its inspiration from the natural world.
It started life, in a sketch pad, in early 2010 and was designed to work as a collection and individually. There are currently several pieces in the collection with plans to further develop it during 2010.
The theme is explored through the sea which is grounded and earthly; sometimes calm, sometimes active but always expressed through unique vessel forms, while the sky is boundless and floating, interpreted through decorative, contemplative and wall-mountable open forms.
Ceramic Landscapes
This series was developed during my MA and explores the materiality of landscapes and their seasons, specifically looking at how the process of making can be harnessed like the processes of geology to work towards an outcome. The expression of the materiality of landscapes was also facilitated, in some cases, by the use of found materials in the creation of glazes. One of the aims of this work is to encourage the viewer to explore and imagine the objects as landscapes in their own right; to move around and physically explore them.
Commemorating Coal
In this series, I'm starting to consider ways of exploring the landscape of coal, its materiality and the way that this can be expressed through the conventional form of commemorative plates.
It is envisaged that the surface will be developed in a more decorative manner with themes that comment on mining's physical and social history, as well as its current standing. To this end, reference images from an industrial estate, which used to be a colliery site, in the Dodworth area of Barnsley, have been taken and are currently being worked on.
