Drawing & Painting

My studio is the place where chaos and order flow and ebb and where I move from one state to the other at regular intervals. This occiliation or tidal interval is a central part of my process of searching for poise and peace.

Ordering and creating visual coherence and harmony is a simple, physical process that enables a background cogitation and the metabolising of the flux and stress of daily domestic life and of world events further afield.

Working in and through immense complexity and possibility is at the core of the process towards integration and a simplicity of being.

Tidying and making things beautiful becomes a kind of daily reverie and meditation, as does throwing vessels on the wheel or forming vessels out of liquid slip or making a drawing or composing an installation. It seems that making things visual and solving displays aesthetically is at the core of the way I find my way.

Creating stillness and poise in myself or in a place, a space or an object becomes the same thing when I am working.

The Elements

I have always picked up beautiful objects on my walks and having them ordered in my studio sets up subtle conversations and sometimes quite immediate translations into a finished work. Sometimes these processes of osmosis are very surprising and humbling.

My children and friends also bring me things and this too forms a relatedness and gives rise to layered and subtle conversations. These pass through or inhabit the objects involved.

Having water around me is particularly important. I have always loved the many levels of reflection possible and also the play of light in water, be it in fish ponds, vases, glass jars and bowls