August 2025
w/c 4 August 2025
Scattered Thoughts, Mindful Making
Once again this week, my mind has felt scattered - chasing fleeting ideas and half-formed visions for possible surface treatments on my ceramic forms, especially around colour and texture. I’m trying to resolve which direction to pursue in more depth, but at the moment there are too many possibilities. I can’t seem to settle on just one - perhaps a sign that I still need to keep researching and experimenting until I find an approach that truly resonates within me.
The form I mono-printed last week and left to dry greeted me with an unwelcome surprise. When I uncovered it, much of the printed slip had pulled away from the surface and flaked off - rather like a suntan peeling away after a holiday, ending up all over the bedroom floor! Clearly, I need to rethink both this technique and the thinking behind it and to better understand what went wrong.
To calm my whirling thoughts, I began applying my ‘petal’ texture to my latest Memories of Place form. While some might see this as a painstaking and time-consuming process, I find it deeply meditative. My whole body relaxes into the rhythm of the work - it’s where I find the most peace in my making.
What’s Inspiring Me This Week:
Ceramicist Hanna Heino
Sculptures that balance fragility and presence, gently reminding me of the power in restraint.
Ceramicist Lesley Mcinally
Her richly layered ceramic surfaces which merge painterly gesture with tactile depth - so inspiring.
Ceramicist Tina Vlassopulos
Her recent sculpture ‘Wave’ is an elegant, fluid form that captures both movement and stillness in a single gesture.
w/c 11 August 2025
The Importance of Colour in Finding My Voice
This week has been one of revelations - the kind that, with hindsight, seem so obvious.
When the 5th exploratory ‘Memories of Place’ form came out of the kiln after its final firing, I felt an unexpected wave of disappointment. The form itself pleased me greatly, yet the surface treatment just wasn’t connecting. It took me two weeks of reflection to understand why. I’ve realised it isn’t the surface method that troubles me, but the colour.
While I admire the striking impact of monochromatic schemes and the visual power they can hold, they don’t reflect the essence of the place that inspired this piece. This has clarified something fundamental for me: colour is not just an embellishment, but an essential part of how I want to communicate memories, emotions and connections to place within my work.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that as I’ve been quietly and methodically applying ‘petals’ to Form No. 8, my thoughts have been crystallising. I’m reminded that my visual language is built not only on texture, pattern and mark-making, but also on colour. Together, these elements form the vocabulary through which I aim to capture not literal representations of place, but fleeting moments - distant memories, treasured times, emotional connections.
Meanwhile, in the background, I continue experimenting with test tiles: slips, mono-printing, mark-making and stains to colour the clay body. Each experiment adds another piece to the puzzle, helping me refine the voice I’m gradually uncovering.
What’s Inspiring Me This Week:
Ceramicist Ali Tomlin
Her pared-back porcelain vessels, marked with spontaneous lines and washes of colour, are a masterclass in restraint and clarity - a reminder that colour and mark-making, even when understated, can hold immense emotional resonance.
w/c 18 August 2025
Halfway Reflections: Challenges, Breakthroughs & New Directions
Undertaking this part-time Ceramics Master’s at the newly named University of Lancashire in Preston has been nothing short of a roller-coaster - exactly as I expected. When I made the decision to embark on this journey, it was with the intention of being challenged, of pushing my practice into new territory and of finding deeper meaning and connection through my work. Over the past year there have been moments that felt tough, exhausting and mentally demanding - but alongside them, those small breakthroughs and steps forward have been incredibly rewarding. This course is certainly not for the faint-hearted.
We’ve now reached the halfway point and yesterday brought our second assessment - a natural moment for reflection and evaluation. In the studio, I just managed to finish applying the petals to Form No. 8 before it dried out too much (a very close call). I hope to have this piece fired in the coming weeks, which means it’s time to turn attention to glaze testing.
This week also brought inspiration from the latest issue of Ceramic Review, where I discovered the wonderful work of Martha Rodriguez. Her practice sparked new thoughts about developing a more organic variation of the ribbon texture I had explored in earlier forms within this module. September is set to be a quieter month in the studio, though I suspect I won’t be able to resist continuing to experiment.
What’s Inspiring Me This Week
Martha Rodriguez - Her richly layered and organic ceramic surfaces are pushing me to think differently about the ribbon textures I’ve used previously and how they might evolve in a freer, more natural way.
Jack Eagan - His sculptural work combines striking form with innovative surface treatments. I’m especially inspired by the way he uses texture across his surfaces to create depth, presence and a sense of movement.
w/c 25 August 2025
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
It really does feel as though I’m moving two steps forward and one step back at the moment - but on the positive side, that still means I’m slowly edging forward! Reflecting on the work I submitted for last week’s second assessment, I’m now focusing on clarifying where this next exploratory body of work needs to go.
My working methodology of using the contours of a place to inform each new piece resonates so strongly with me, which I’m really pleased about. However, I’m still searching for a way to visually communicate the connection between memory and place - those deeply felt emotional ties that can be remembered through all the senses - and to bring this onto the surfaces of my forms. The ongoing cycle of testing, testing, testing with tiles continues to be invaluable; these shorthand experiments for new ideas or directions have become some of my most informative tools.
The atmosphere at university has been at fever pitch as the second years pull their final shows together for next week. In an effort to stay focused amidst the buzz, I coloured a small batch of clay (just 1.5kg) using GS58 Soft Blue Stain from CTM Potters Supplies to make a quick maquette piece, much like my test tiles, to push my practice forward in a fast, responsive way. That said, yesterday I abandoned this maquette after feeling unhappy with its progress - it’s now in the reclaim bucket, ready to begin again next week as something new. I’m learning to see this not as wasted time, but as invested time: a way of ruling out the directions I don’t want to take.
Home continues to sustain and calm me. It’s so peaceful here - a visual feast every day. This is what I want to capture and communicate through my work: not an easy task, but one worth pursuing.
