Finding Form Through Play

After more than thirty years as a professional artist, I’ve realised that my best sculptures don’t begin with certainty but with curiosity.

Where Do My Ideas Come From?

People often think that I have a huge imagination.

The honest answer is that it’s less about knowing beforehand what I’m going to make and more about trusting the creative process. I switch off my analytical mind and give my well rehearsed hands all the time they need. One baby step inspires the next. What the sculpture is going to become reveals itself in its own time, and I simply encourage it. My imagination works throughout though, constantly observing, defining and improving.

Sometimes I begin with a vague intention – a face or a figure. More often than not, I begin with total opennesss. I push the clay around, I add to it, take away from it, and play. I’m not inventing the sculpture but instead I’m waiting to recognise it.

Recognising the Sculpture

It’s a physical sensation when a moment arrives when I suddenly go, “Oh… there it is.”

Not because it’s finished, but because something has finally come into focus. It has become itself – especially when I stop trying to deny it.

Sometimes this happens quickly. Other times it takes days. Those are the difficult pieces. The large, complicated sculptures that refuse to reveal themselves. They test my patience and my confidence.

Trusting the Process

During those times I keep telling myself one thing:

Trust the process.

It’s surprisingly hard advice to follow when you’re standing in front of a big heavy lump of clay with no clear destination.

There are stages when the sculpture seems to demand something of me. A cut. A change in balance. Removing a section I’ve spent hours making. Often I don’t want to do it. It feels risky, wasteful, even foolish.

Yet I know I’ll regret not trying. I’d rather risk ruining a sculpture than wonder forever what it might have become.

But if I ignore that instinct, the sculpture never quite feels right.

So I always try it.

Listening to the Clay

It’s almost as though the clay has a mind of its own.

I don’t mean that literally. Clay doesn’t think. But there is a dialogue between the material and me. Gravity has an opinion. A curve suggests another curve. One decision makes the next one possible.

It’s a gradual unfolding that I simply follow.

Without a guidebook.

Learning to Let Go

For years I thought the goal was simply to keep making. More sculptures. More ideas. More work. More discoveries.

Lately I’ve been wondering if that’s true.

My flat fills with sculptures. Storage becomes an issue. Sales are unpredictable. I could continue making forever, but I also want a home that isn’t overflowing with artwork. I want time to swim, to travel, to dive beneath the sea, and to spend time with people I love.

I’m beginning to think that this isn’t a failure of commitment. Perhaps it’s my next stage as an artist.

When I was younger, I needed to make everything in order to discover what mattered, each piece informing the next. I pushed myself.

Now I’m asking a different question.

Which sculptures deserve to exist?

Not every experiment needs to become a permanent object. Sometimes the real discovery happens during the making. Occasionally I simply don’t like the result. I add water, recycle the clay and begin again.

Why I Still Make Sculpture

The high light is when the kiln cools and I open the door. It’s that instant of recognition when something previously unknown finally stands before me in all it’s glazed wonder.

I understand my sculptures best when they’re standing on a plinth or hanging on a white gallery wall, away from the familiarity of my studio.

That feeling is why I make sculpture.

To arrive at that extraordinary point, after weeks of work, when an uncertain mass of clay becomes something undeniably real.

Those are the times that keep me coming back to the studio.

Even after all these years, it still feels like magic.

This piece is available: BUY NOW!

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