My practice is grounded in an upbringing shaped by a family of skilled craftspeople. My family’s fibreglass boat-building business and my mum’s skills in sewing and garment construction gave me an early foundation in technical knowledge, material understanding and practical skills. I now draw on these inherited ways of working within a contemporary, material-led ceramic practice. Working primarily with vessel forms, my practice seeks to explore how knowledge is inherited, adapted and transformed as it moves between materials, processes and generations. I am interested in what happens when familiar ways of making are taken out of their original context and reinterpreted through clay, creating a dialogue between industrial processes, craft and contemporary ceramics.
My approach reflects this, bringing together influences from marine engineering, pattern drafting and garment construction to form a hybrid language of making. I work with large nerikomi slabs reminiscent of fabric, draping them over hand-carved plugs, much like fibreglass cloth laid over a mould or a mannequin. Once the slabs have dried to leather hard, they are constructed into the three-dimensional vessel. The rigid plug provides structure and control, while by contrast, the fluid and intuitive nature of the nerikomi introduces chance and unpredictability. These opposing forces create tension within the work. Reclaimed studio clay introduces further variables, with the offcuts from each vessel reclaimed and returned to the clay body. Over time, the palette naturally evolves, carrying traces of previous work into what comes next.
After firing, the surfaces begin as quiet, almost monochromatic fields. The complexity is gradually revealed through a rigorous sanding process, where the outer surface is removed to expose intricate veins and hidden formations within the clay body. This becomes a process of sustained looking, uncovering depth and pattern that could not be seen from the surface alone.
The resulting vessels have a smooth, taut finish that invites touch. Their curves and surfaces draw on a shared visual language between maritime hulls, clothing and ceramic forms. Through this combination of inherited knowledge and material experimentation, I explore how memory and making are carried forward, transformed and ultimately embedded within the material itself.
