Material Explorations
My practice is rooted in continual learning. Many of the techniques that appear throughout my work have developed through specialist workshops, mentoring and collaborative making with generous artists and craftspeople.
These explorations include wax carving, stone carving, reticulation, talismanic jewellery, wild clay processing, woodblock printing, saggar firing and experimental ceramic processes.
Material has always been central to my practice. Clay, metal, stone, wax, wood, bone, pigment and found materials each bring their own histories, properties and possibilities to the work. I am interested in what happens when material is handled, transformed, fired, cast, weathered or reconfigured — and in the histories that materials carry with them.
LEARNING THROUGH MAKING
SharLala Jewellery — wax carving
Celia Allen - Ceramics practice
Sanni Falkenberg — stone carving and lapidary
Susan Lenart — talismanic jewellery and mentoring
Holly Dawes — saggar and wild clay
Martin Brockman — woodblock, wood carving, pigments and wild clay
MATERIAL, PROCESS & EXPERIMENT
I work across a range of materials and processes, allowing the properties and behaviour of each material to shape the work. Metalworking includes casting, reticulation, granulation, fusing, fabrication and enamelling; alongside this I work with wax, clay, stone, wood, pigment and found materials. Experimentation is an important part of the process — testing how materials respond to heat, pressure, carving, firing, weathering and transformation, and allowing unexpected results to become part of the work.