About Me

My pottery journey began with an evening pottery class run by the local secondary school, where I instantly felt totally at home with muddy hands! I went on to do some group and individual lessons with Vivien O’Malley, an amazing potter and teacher based in Dunhill Ecopark. Soon, doing a weekly lesson wasn’t enough, so I created a space in my garage and invested in a wheel and a small kiln.

I am continually inspired by and try to capture the essence of the ocean that I grew up beside. Every time I go to the beach, I come home with my pockets full – shells, driftwood, sea glass and, in particular, holey stones! I am fascinated by the colours and textures you can find on the coast. The wet shine of small stones being tumbled by waves, the jewel glint of a piece of sea glass, the view through a hole in a stone, the swirl inside a shell. Along with this connection to nature is my connection to the community surrounding the sea.

I have swam in the sea since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and so have witnessed the many ways in which the sea can connect people—from the generations of a family spending a sunny summer's day together down on the Lady Slip with buckets and sandy picnics to the cliff jumping teens' rite of passage in the guillamene and the groups of open water swimmers and paddlers heading towards the iconic Metalman or the surfers carving up the waves on the beach front.

My pottery is made using white stoneware clay. It is either thrown on the wheel or hand-built using rolled-out slabs of clay. It is slowly dried before being put into the kiln for a bisque firing. Once the piece is cooled, it is taken out of the kiln and decorated using underglazes and glazes. It is then fired for a second time, up to temperatures of 12500.

This is where the amazing alchemy of pottery comes to life – what goes into the kiln is so vastly different from what comes out. There is always a moment of nervous trepidation before opening the kiln and seeing the transformation of a wet lump of clay into a piece of creative beauty. Sometimes, no matter what my intentions are, the clay decides what it wants to be. This results in interesting variations in my repeat pieces and also in unique one-off creations.

The entire process can take anything up to 3 or 4 weeks to complete. Drying a piece too quickly can cause it to crack before it even gets into the kiln. Putting a piece into the kiln before it’s fully dry can result in it exploding, destroying other pieces beside it. Opening the kiln before it’s cool enough can result in thermal shock - cracking the glaze or the pot.