Our World Around
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I work with a liquid form of clay called casting slip. Most of my clays come from digging them out of the ground so the clay is unique to a place. With this casting slip I make repeated casts of the same object form and they all come from the same plaster moulds. It is this mass production method I like. I also use rock like materials for making glazes.
My ongoing work brings together an exploration of different materials that have cultural or historical significance to an area I’m living and my story of travel and making objects that are ceramic.
These pieces of work were created during lockdown in 2021. They are in the style of the Old English slip trailing. This traditional technique and history is brought into the modern day through the subversion of the Nursery Rhyme 'ring around the roses' and its links to the plague and thus pandemic of 2020.
My most recent work with materials and clay was inspired by the Middlesbrough area. Here I have used Middlesbrough clay and the Scoria bricks found in so many back lanes and road gutters. The Scoria bricks are a waste product from the steel making industry.
This recent work centres around the use of a skittle-teapot form sitting on a rail sleeper made of Middlesbrough clay. I fire in different types of kilns to achieve different qualities in the fired clay. These works have been fired in an electric kiln which I let go too hot, melting the clay.
Thetilesmadeintheworkshopsthatranthroughout NovemberandDecember2022areexhibitedhereas partofthiscollaborativeexhibition.
ParticipantsexploredthemesofOurWorldAround inthecreationofthetiles.Theypressedpiecesof leaves,branches,othernaturalmaterialsandobjects fromhomesuchasornamentsandcoinsintoclay. Thenpouredplasterintotheclaymould-creating a 3Deffecttile.
Togethertheseworksrepresentthepeoplearound us,whomakeupourcommunity.Viewersareoffered aninsightintothelivesoftheparticipants throughthe