Profile: Fiona Gurney

Fiona Gurney and the box of frogs

As you would expect, the studio of Fiona Gurney is a ceramicist’s paradise, lined as it with ancient and unusual pieces, stacks of beautiful but often chipped plates, cups and jugs and then the vibrant, exotic and captivating mosaics that she has been quietly crafting while listening to Radio 4 for the last 14 years!

One such treasure is a loving cup with the inscription ‘William and Mary Howson 1866’. Fiona carefully removes it from the shelf and indicates where her Grandfather, acquiring the piece from a friend with an antiques shop, had meticulously repaired the handle. By day working in maritime insurance, in the evenings he was an artist in oils and would teach a men’s adult education class in Brockley, Lewisham, where he lived. Her other Grandfather worked for the GPO but in his spare time he was an accomplished carpenter and restorer of vintage vehicles. It is a matter of some chagrin in the family that he gave away his meticulously restored Lagonda to a neighbour!

Not surprising, then, that Fiona inherited an artistic talent and went to university where she studied art and left with a degree in Woven Textiles – one which she has yet to use. Work followed as a merchandiser, working in sales planning and promotion for Laura

Ashley, The Conran Shop and Heals in London‘s West End. It wasn’t creative in the artistic sense of the word; it was primarily about numbers, but it did involve the occasional visit to trade fairs overseas in Boston and Paris and with never a dull moment Fiona loved the buzz of city life.

Introduced to husband Andrew by a mutual friend, the couple settled in Sussex and soon had a baby daughter, a puppy and a pony. The house was lovely but much too small and so the family moved to a larger house dating to 1876 in Deeping St Nicholas! And they filled it! With three more children in quick succession, a cat fostered from a family moving to Australia who Andrew met on his daily commute to London and three more dogs, life was chaotic. Indeed Andrew was heard to say that they were as mad as a box of frogs – the words resonated and when Fiona later set up her business the phrase became the name!

Deciding that a day off was needed, Fiona enrolled for a one-day course with mosaic artist Ann Cardwell, who she had come across online. Held in Saffron Walden, far enough away not to be called back, Fiona set out on what was to become the adventure of a lifetime. Inspired by the process of creating mosaics, Fiona started work straightaway with a project at her children’s school. She has not looked back, selling her artwork at galleries up and down the country and locally at the Unique Studios in Spalding.

Raiding jumble sales, car boot sales and Market Deeping Antiques and with forays to the antique shops in Horncastle, Fiona collects colourful, inspirational and preferably damaged pieces which she will then unceremoniously smash in order to create the hearts, birds and fish mosaics for which she has become known, inspired by the English countryside, by the birds outside of her window and regular trips to Willow Tree Fen. The paisley motif of her recent contemporary pieces was taken from a Scottish paisley shawl given to her by her grandmother. Fiona had plenty of time to envisage her creations as she drove daughter Tilly, a competitive cyclist, to events all over the UK. Now at Nottingham University where she is studying Medical Physiology, Tilly is now a pilot for visually impaired para-cyclists; she is the eyes and steering of a tandem on which the visually impaired rider provides the vigorous pedalling needed at the back. This year she plans to ride with Scottish and English visually impaired cyclists in their national events.

As well as the pieces made for sale in galleries and online, Fiona is also keen to craft larger exhibition pieces, remembering the community sculpture she did to commemorate the relay of the Olympic Torch as one of the high points in her career. Working with over one thousand people in village halls and churches throughout South Holland, five large sculptures were made and placed as examples of community art in Spalding, Moulton, Holbeach, Long Sutton and Whaplode Drove. Initially students at the Holbeach Academy had designed the artwork for the pieces, which were to depict a sport and included ribbons in the colours of the Olympic logo as well as an iconic image relevant to the village or town. Designs were judged by a panel including Fiona, Rebecca Rowett, Councillor Nick Worth and the Head of Art at the Academy. Having transferred the ideas into drawings, Fiona then supervised the workshops with local people filling in swathes of colour with mosaic pieces. A blacksmith was then commissioned to make the steel frames which held the artworks which rightfully fill Fiona with pride today.

With her third child Edward interested in sculpture with clay and intending to attend Art School, Fiona’s legacy looks set to be passed down to another generation. Meanwhile developing her own career, she has been attending evening classes in silver-smithing in Horncastle and has a residential course booked in Chichester, where she will study enamelling. One thing seems for sure: her studio with its kitchen table, homely sofa complete with dog and cat and the radio quietly on in the background looks set to produce beautifully crafted pieces of art well into the future.