about making

My approach to making at the moment is to focus on the process more than the outcome.  Meeting the clay is like a conversation with a good friend. It’s about openness, listening and exploration.  There might be things I’d like to discuss, but I really don’t know where the conversation will lead.  It’s quite spontaneous and the pleasure is in being together. The pot is a physical manifestation of that meeting. 

In a world that promotes striving and effort as the route to success I  aspire to minimise those; to discover what is so inherent in the material and so natural to me that the making is effortless and I am free to enjoy what emerges.  The alternative, to push the clay to fit with a preplanned design, doesn’t excite me.  It would mean that the most I could hope for is to make what I imagined, but the best things in my life have always been beyond my imagination. Why would I want to limit the pots?

So each day in the studio I bring inspiration from the morning’s walk, and I try to find what feels the most natural for me, my body and for the clay.  I reach for the tool I love the feel of, discard the process I find tedious, and stare into space when I feel like it.  

I’ve come to this approach through a life of making; music, radio, TV, paintings, furniture, and now pots.  Over time there has been a gradual falling away of control and an increased appreciation of happenstance.  A drift from a sense of achievement to gift, accomplishment to gratitude.

I try to minimise the environmental impact of my work by starting from low temperature firings and common materials. Then I see whether it really needs anything more.  Often it doesn’t.  In the same vein I start by selling locally and see where things go from there.  It’s nice to meet the people who buy the work rather than it just becoming a commodity.  Meeting and connection.. with clay, nature and people.  I guess that’s what it’s about really.

These things fascinate me so feel free to be in touch, You can read more on the blog.  And there are images of the work, work in progress and landscape inspirations in the gallery.

Come, buy and say hello at the a open studios and markets.

Thanks for your interest.