Ceramics & Sculpture

I started to make ceramics while studying for an MA in art psychotherapy. I work intuitively with the clay as I do all media. I like to be innocent to materials working from different points of inspiration, my main source is my unconscious and symbolism found in cultures world wide.

I wish to convey intimacy in my imagery and to the imagery and that’s very evident to me in the relationship with the materials also. There is an attachment to the clay as a reliable form able to sustain the force of feeling and the alchemical processes it endures when fired.

I see the plates as mandalas, which Carl Jung suggests are direct portals to the unconscious mind. The different clays and glazes lend themselves to a different relationship with the surface. Some are simple sketches, others are deeply invested in, worked repeatedly and/or fired multiple times. I hold a gesture, person, situation in mind and try to remember it. I believe we have so much ‘data’ within us just from looking . My confidence in drawing and painting comes from a rigorous drawing back ground and a regular observational practice.

I like the precarity of the medium and feel my most successful work are those unintentional and almost unviable pieces that somehow survive the rigors of firing. I am open to happen chance and uncertainty.
Building as opposed to painting on ceramics will depend on my state of mind. I use my art therapy training to reflect on the symbolic nature of my work and see something courageous in the process of exposing my internal world. Themes of trauma and ‘the human conditions’ of loss, vulnerability and desire harvest proximity and meaningful engagement.

Sculpture

I make innocently having no training in sculpture. It affords the opportunity to combine media and create installations in an external space other than internal world. I am excited by the idea of existing autonomously in space as a free standing, self-supporting erect object. I worked with a child with Tourette’s syndrome, he had violent twitches that shook his body. In the sessions he made a free standing figure and the twitches stopped long enough for him to complete this. I see this as a metaphor for how the creative process can contain us and allow us to ‘come into being in a solid way’.

2021 Peisley Ceramics catalogue (14.8MB PDF)