Description

I’m finding this highly glazed ceramic art object completely mesmerising – I can’t stop looking at it! I think it’s the best piece I’ve ever made and I’ve got two more of these pretty ladies on the go.

The bottom of the skirt is my interpretation of the seabed, the benthic zone, which is my favourite place to explore when I scuba dive – rocks, plants, flotsam (I love all of it). I’m a bottom hugger when I dive!

She looks good from every angle, and the more you look, the more you see. She’s got the imprint of netting on one side, I made that using an onion sack, with some cobalt wash.

That glaze chemistry course I did before Christmas has really paid off. This is the first piece that truly shows off what I learned. Every glaze is made from scratch – chemical formulas I’ve tweaked, tested and adapted to work with the raw materials I can source locally. And like everything else we humans use, build, eat, wear and live in, every single material in this sculpture was dug from the Earth. Clay and rocks like quartz, granite, limestone and chalk (all powdered) and the colours are from metal oxides like chrome and copper.

Becoming proficient with form and colour at such extreme temperatures has been quite a journey. We’re talking over 1260°C, so the clay is completely vitrified and the glazes are fully developed and well fluxed.

I should probably be making work for high-end galleries. Instead, I’m making whatever the fuck I want.