Artist’s Statement

Working with clay is a necessity for me. From an early age clay has been a material that informs and reaffirms my identity. I have never felt like I belong anywhere and so the making process has become both a search for, and an escape from, my environment. I think that this is why my work has developed in two distinct directions; the result of conflicts and questions that resolve themselves in forms that embody a sense of balance and unity.  

I work in two quite different ways. One is the making of waves and the other is constructing; one is loose and wild, the other is fine and measured – similar to how I live my life, drifting off and trying to disappear and travel, in response to staying grounded and building my home.

The making process is also an investigation into social identity as I represent a small part of human behaviour. It can be a question of how our response to emotional situations changes and influences us. At the end of the day it all makes sense; a little piece of history with each piece marking a milestone from the past. They have all been a subject of change and a question of defining time. What happens in between is the inspiration. I work to find balance between what is real and imagined. Between the need to fight or flight, between swim and sink. Between my spontaneous nature and the responsibility of being an artist and a mother. 

There seem to be so many lives in a day, filled with intangible thoughts, reflected in nature. My search is for structures to connect that mind and matter. 

I love the feel of clay and the immediate response of the material, which communicates at a sensory level. I believe the senses bypass logic and provide a direct route to our inner life. I work in a territory inhabited by fleeting moments. 

When building up a piece of work, I become intensely absorbed. This intimacy leaves little room for compromise – and by that I mean that the people closest to me, my family and friends, become—temporarily—secondary to the work at hand. What is wrong with me? This sensation of absorption is clearly important but I struggle to describe it. It is as though the making process weaves itself around me, hypnotically, becoming an enveloping world, the structure and energy of which manifest from the clay itself, even though I give it physical form. This emergent ‘world’ is a dialogue, a relationship; it is intimate. 

Every form is a response to an experience. Clay transformation is an important way for me to interpret the world, to see what is truly there, to make sense. Clay is the vessel through which I navigate chaotic thoughts and unconnected impressions. My every action in clay refers back to a mental state and these gestures connect thought, hand and space. Each element investigates the other and creates a channel of communication. 

Each work is a culmination of possibilities and exists only because I make it real.