Information/ FAQs

Seldom Asked Questions

Why do you make pottery that can't be used?

I started off making vessels like everybody working with clay tends to, it's a very strong tradition to follow, but it's very hard to make sense of it now. It's also very hard to make ceramic vessels by hand in a modern economy and make a living from it. If I made jugs they would be incredibly expensive and no-one could afford them (my working method is usually one-off hand building). This removes the need to make useful things from the equation so the question then becomes -what do I want to make? This a complex question too and the answer changes all the time.

However I don't think manual artistic skills are redundant. I have a strong commitment to the medium, mainly because I like it and it works.

Where do you get your ideas, what is your inspiration?

Inspiration is a funny idea, it smacks of 'eureka moments' as if ideas come by magic out of the sky. When I think about this I think my ideas come from putting together fragments of all the things I have ever seen, read or heard. I think you build up layer upon layer of information in your mind and body and then draw on it when you are ready to develop an idea. It's not a magical process, it's methodical. I take photographs almost every day, I sketch things and write notes, but I also watch TV, read papers and magazines and surf the internet and just look around me - just consider how much information is flowing past you and through you every day - it is quite staggering, there is no shortage of material to work with. As an artist you just have know how you want to sort through it and to use it in a way that is meaningful to you in your present context.

Are you a potter or an artist?

I am an artist. Saying that can mean absolutely anything because being an artist is essentialy self-defined. I am aware that being a successful artist has a lot of status, being a potter has a very different status, it has the aura of the artisan or guild member, something about trade secrets, having the 'knack' knowing the tricks and skills. Both labels come with a lot of complex baggage but in the end they are only labels and the work has to speak for itself.


Why do you work on a small scale? Would you like to work larger?

I work at the scale I am comfortable with. Sometimes scale is one of the issues dealt with in the work itself. Scale in ceramics tends to be largely dictated by the size of the kiln you have available but that's not the only issue. The larger you work the longer each piece takes but not in direct proportion to it's height or area. If I make one piece that is 10 cm tall and decide to scale it up to 20cm tall it doesn't take twice as long, it's more like four times as long. If you consider the volume of 10cm cubed to 20cm cubed the proportions are 1:8. So scaling up has major implications in terms of how much work you can get done in a limited amount of time.
There is a current tendency to try to work as big as possible because of the awe factor but just think if you scale up something ugly, just how much more ugly it is when you can see it for miles around. So I am not sure it is always a good thing but I do think you can get most ideas across on a small scale.

Why do you work in clay and not some traditional sculpture material like bronze?

I work in clay because I like the material. I could use casting as a reproduction tool and I don't rule it out, either casting in clay or in metal. Bronze has an aura of grand traditions and statues of the heroic (and people like Stalin and Saddam Hussein). It is a material that comes with its own burden, it's rarefied and has precious connotations and of course it's expensive so it's less accessible. Casting a work in bronze doesn't make the work any better, it just makes it more durable and costly. I suppose it is also like a brand, people want it because it associates them with precious and expensive things, they feel they are buying a sophisticated lifestyle.
One of the interesting things about this is how few people know what they like, they use brands and the associations of precious materials as a dependable guide that helps them map the artistic landscape which is otherwise confusing and arcane. In art there are multiple languages being used and of course they are mostly changing all the time as many languages do so it's a difficult area to understand and many feel shut out by the obscurity. Equally this difficulty of understanding the subject means that true quality is very difficult to pin down and buyers and the general public are much more susceptible to hype and marketing tricks than in other areas of the economy. This is all part of the 'mystique' of art.


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