Whale Sculpture

From a very young age I started playing with clay, and went on to study three-dimensional design, mixed mediums, wood, metalwork and ceramics. I'm unable to keep myself away from the tactility of clay - it's been my journey and the clay has become part of me and the way I experience life.  I teach ceramics which I find amazingly rewarding, not only for sharing the skill-set I have built over the last twenty-something years, but for others to experience its calming and therapeutic qualities. For the last ten years I have lived on the coast, walking daily along the seafront or in the woods, witnessing the expanse of the ever-changing seasons, as the skies, sunsets and weather help ground how small we are as individuals, even though our emotions can feel so large and overwhelming at times. I work to process my emotions, filter thoughts, replay events in my mind, creating a tangible, tactile, solid form through the process of manipulation and pushing boundaries - not only of the material but in my mind whilst making and representing the complexities of my emotions. The limitations of the material help confirm the fragility of feelings. I hope to evoke new interpretations from the observer. No two people can feel the same, nor view the same, and each individual will take something different from a shared experience; therefore the work will deliver different meanings for all observers based on their own experiences. The complexities of human nature evolve over time, and my shapes evolve with time. Some take a few days of revisiting to make, others can take months before completion, every shape representing a journey taken. Which journey that is is sometimes not clear to me until months or even years after finishing the work. I believe if someone is drawn to one of my shapes they may not instantly know why, but over time this will perhaps become clear to them too... All my shapes represent something slightly different from different angles of observation, and this shows that emotions can sometimes be mixed, whilst being part of the bigger piece.