Who is the maker behind the makes?

Who is the maker behind the makes? Who am I? What do I like? What makes me, me? I work mostly by instinct and let the ideas reveal themselves – try them out to see how successful they are. With ceramics there is a great deal of scope for things to go wrong, maybe that’s what keeps my interest – some mistakes are my greatest successes. I enjoy the process of making however long that takes, being able to make a lump of clay into something beautiful…. burnishing, carving, polishing, turning…all things that make me feel calm and in control. Away from clay I love to knit and sew and have recently learnt to crochet in lockdown. Does that tell you something about me? This is a photograph I took in the early nineties, a self-portrait on a SLR camera before the day of ‘selfies’. At that time I went on a porcelain doll making course, I enjoyed slip casting part, but then found myself constantly surrounded by limbs and heads which was all a bit disturbing – so I moved onto pots and never looked back!