Biography

I live and work on the edge of the small Cotswold town of Stroud in Gloucestershire. My studio is situated at the top of our garden, overlooking the valley in which Stroud sits to the countryside beyond.

I have made things with my hands from a very early age from whatever I found available: models from cardboard and tape and pots from the sticky yellow clay which I found in the hole in our garden from where my father excavated the WWII air-raid shelter. I used to attempt to fire each vessel by building a fire around it, but because I didn't know the pot needed to be completely dry the result was always total disintigration. As a child I also spent many hours drawing both from what I saw around me and from my imagination.

My secondary education at Romford County Technical School, in accordance with the prevailing climate of the early 1960’s was very much slanted towards the sciences. My “A” level results in Biology, Physics and Chemistry suggested that veterinary science was not, for me at least, an ideal career path, so I stayed a further year in the sixth form and studied “A” level Art. The Art teacher, Miss Sargent, was responsible for my introduction to clay and throwing. Her encouragement to experiment and use clay as a means of expression as well as for utilitarian purposes was truly inspirational. Following a year’s foundation course at Walthamstow Technical College, I commenced a degree course at the West of England College of Art and Design in Bristol in the late summer of 1970.

The course tutors, especially Gillian Lowndes and Ian Auld, and some of my fellow students: Richard Godfrey, Ken Cope, Dave Bowyer, Nick Homoky and the late Ken Walters, provided technical guidance on the one hand and inspiration through friendship, music and a creative sensibility on the other that I hadn’t previously encountered. This sense of “can do” creativity remains my engine to this day.

Following my graduation, my first attempt at getting a studio under way foundered on the rocks of Bristol Planning Office. By this time I was Dad to two young children, Graeme and Tim and husband to Sally, so an income by any means became a priority. Consequently, for five years I worked variously as a postman, builder, forklift truck driver and warehouse foreman until an opportunity came in the shape of a working ceramics studio in Bristol being vacated by potter Michael Hawkins. We were only able to take advantage of this due to the generosity of friends Mike and Alison Harvey. This gave us a short space of time to get some product out and start making money. Sally and I worked together producing stoneware pieces. For eight years this was our sole means of income, and was in many ways very successful: our work sold well and Harrods of London were among our customers. However, the income was hand to mouth, and so in 1987 both Sally and I made a career change into nursing. Sally pursued a career in community nursing, and I in paediatric critical care. This phase of our working lives continued for the best part of 20 years, and Sally continues to work in nurse development and education.

Early in 2006 it became clear to me that I needed a profound change of working environment, so with Sally’s support, I resigned from my position as Practice Development Lead Nurse of the Paediatric Critical Care Unit at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, and began building a studio at the end of my garden in Stroud.

My first pieces were fired in the summer of 2007, but my first year was dogged by technical problems that finally, now a year later, have been resolved for the greater part. This time I have chosen to work in earthenware for several reasons. Firstly to minimise my carbon footprint – to this end I am also using a very efficient electric kiln. Secondly, I want the range of effects and colours that earthenware provides. I have chosen the airbrush as my main tool for surface decoration, though I recognise I am only taking my first steps along the path of acquiring the skills to realise the full range of wonderful affects that this remarkable method affords.

My source of inspiration continues to be the beauty of the natural world. The ocean affects me very deeply and I love to be by it, in it or on it - ideally indulging my love of windsurfing. I am captivated by the effect of light shining on and through water. I feel a strong kinship with oriental art because their quiet reverence and awe of the created world permeates their fabrics, gardens, buildings, ceramics and paintings. Their ceramic forms also have a calm, harmonious quality that sings the same song.

So I am seeking to reflect a little of that beauty in my work. When I look at the ocean I feel excited yet peaceful. If I can engender a little of that sense and feeling through my work I will have achieved my goal.