Around 1965 I first came across ceramics which I did at Rochdale Art School on Saturday mornings in a class meant for teenagers, my mum took me along and insisted that they let me in on the strength of my work with the plasticene.

Foundations

I did my foundation course at Maidstone college of Art [1971] I was drawn to the pottery studio but I also tried a lot of other media just as you are supposed to. This course was run by Evan Thomas as a kind of mass encounter group with Bauhaus overtones. It was tremendously exciting and very intense. I was introduced to conceptual art, photography, astrology, etching, lithography and plaster casting. There seemed to be so much to learn, I gladly consumed it all as only a teenager could. I learned photography and how to throw pots along with print-making and rudimentary product design. We did some drawing but it was certainly not the core of the course, just another creative tool. I loved it.




College

At college [Leeds Polytechnic] in 1973 I gravitated towards conceptual art via performance art, land art and installations



although I did manage to squeeze some ceramics into my final show. I borrowed a set of plates and cups from the college canteen, enamelled them with silk-screened black symbols and sent them back into the canteen on the washing up conveyor, naturally I documented the process with photographs in the best conceptual fashion. What happened to the plates remains a mystery. The course at Leeds polytechnic was difficult for me, it had none of the supportive camaraderie of my foundation course and I had no idea how people maintained a sense of themselves as creative practitioners. The laisez-faire approach of the fine art department left me facing a gaping chasm where my confidence ought to have been.
On reflection I am amazed how little I know about what was behind the Fine Art 'course' at Leeds Polytechnic I don't recall seeing any prospectus or even a course outline. What I had seen was an article in the Sunday Times which appeared a couple of years before I went with pictures of camouflaged telephones on wheels. That really made an impression so when I was offered a place I jumped at it.



Career(s)

On leaving college [1976] I tried to maintain the kind of work I had developed there (see above). I soon found this difficult without the college facilities although I did intermittently maintain a studio space. I moved to York, to Brighton then to London where I eventually got involved in community arts projects [Paddington Printshop, West London Media Workshop] designing and teaching silk screen printing and photography and audio visual shows.

Five years later I discovered the art of illustration and set about using and developing techniques based on photo-montage. Although I have done a lot of different things it has all been based on visual arts and I have never stopped making things of some sort, also I have never lost the idea of myself as an artist, someone who is passionate about making things.


Above: digital illustration made using 3d software and Photoshop

Over fifteen years in the illustration business led me to develop computer skills and this in turn led to a full time job with a web design company when illustration hit one of those major changes when they began to use electronic media to market it and the whole business shifted on it's axis leaving me without sufficient commisioned work to survive.

During 1994 I began to practice ceramics again. I made use of a much under-valued adult education system to re-aquaint myself with working in clay.



I got excellent instruction from skilled practitioners like Josie Warshaw at Camden Arts Centre and Caroline Whyman at SouthThames college in Battersea. After five years of this I took on a studio space at Redlees Studios in Isleworth in West London so that I could spend more time making ceramics.



I now spend as much time as I can at the studio, my work is evolving all the time. I take notes, sketch whenever I can and collect images in my sketchbook, on my camera and in my head. These all contribute to the progession of my work. The work tends to get made at a much slower rate than the one at which my ideas develop. This means I have to be very selective about what I make and only choose the strongest projects to realise in clay.

Find more of my early work on the old version of my (flash) site.

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