Partridge in a pear tree Sculpture

Born 1954 in Otley,West YorkshireArt College trained and experienced secondary school teacher Lesley has been making,exhibiting and selling her figurative hand built ceramic sculptures since 1994 Inspiration for my earlier works came from my home life as well as a lifelong interest in museum artefacts,ancient history,myths and legends.Over the years I have revisited and recalled some of those elements to create my current collecton.The cat reliquary vessels are based on canopic jars and mummifiedforms from ancient egypt.They function on a decorative level but they could be used for the interrment of remains.Theunmodelled coils revealing the skeleton are intended as a visual metaphor for the purpose. Miu is the ancient egyptian word for cat.Feeline is a play on words and the desire to hold and touch the object. I aim to create the feeling of the ceremonial or sacred in many of mypieces but also think that humour is an important quality. Geisha was created to show originally at Potfest in Cumbria several years ago when there was a cultural exchange between Japan and the Lake District.I initially created two Kimonos to work out how I would construct the bigger piece but left them without the figure because I felt that they took on a lifeand movement of their own. Something which I hope to explore further in the future. The camel pieces began with the crowned camels Rex designedfor a christmas show and the story goes on.I have had a couple of opportunities to siton the back of a camel and I attempt to get the feel of the movement of the animal.