At first I tried to follow the studio ceramics model, whereby you make high quality hand made tableware for a discerning market. I soon realised this did not suit my method of hand building. There was something absurd about spending a whole day or more making a vase when the value to a consumer is so low because comparable objects can be produced much more cheaply overseas or by mass production or both. When a situation becomes impossible something has to change, so I changed to making something that seems more important to me.

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 use it or filter it through your work.

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, something about trade secrets, having the 'knack' knowing the tricks and skills. Both labels come with a lot of irrelevant 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 great and good (and people like Saddam Hussein). It is a material that comes with its own baggage, 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 a lot of people are confused by it and many feel shut out by the obscurity.


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