About

I am an Edinburgh based maker of ceramic figures. I established my studio practice in Edinburgh whilst working in the ceramic department at Edinburgh college of Art, initially as technician and latterly as a lecturer. Before this I achieved an MA in ceramics at The Royal College of Art, which I believe formed the foundation of my creative thinking and a fascination with clay – specifically its malleability and its plastic qualities that have the ability to mimic a wide variety of other materials.

I create slightly surreal cartoon-like figurative ceramic sculptures that are intended to be visual puns about the human condition. I am aiming for simplistic appearing figures with the elegance of a bygone era and it is cartoonists and illustrators from the 50’s and 60’s such as, Miroslav Sasek, Ronald Searle, Edward Gorey, that inform my style.

I like my work to be ambiguous and offer the viewer visual clues and use titles as a way in to the true meaning. Narratives based on personal experiences and cultural observations draw the reader in a with a smile before titles or symbols suggest alternative, sometimes darker interpretations. I express ideas using humour to ‘sugar the pill’, creating unlikely scenarios, ridiculous juxtapositions or exaggerating the familiar.

The characters that I make explore the constant unravelling of events in contemporary culture as well as universal themes such as love, loss and the different roles people play in society. I respond to events in my personal life and in the wider world; snippets of conversation or words and phrases that I hear spark an image in my imagination. Nothing escapes scrutiny; chance comments, potentially insignificant interactions and day-to-day life get refracted through my imagination and is my way of relating to the increasingly bizarre reality which forms the fabric of our daily lives. I often observe and commit to memory a person or a face in the street, more often than not slightly eccentric, to be immortalised in clay later.

At the core of each piece of work is a message, for example I might ridicule conspicuous consumption, send-up pretentious behaviour, myself included or react to new technology with a nostalgic enjoyment of the vintage, to create contemporary fables in clay. My subjects can range from modern dilemmas such as catastrophising while packing for a family holiday to eyeing up the tour de France, buying all the gear but ultimately realising it’s all about the coffee and the cake! Another strand of my interests however lie in researching historical figures from Greek gods to kings and queens, looking for myths and legends with moral parallels in the present day.

Technical notes

From an early age I was drawn to the old tin toys of an earlier era, space rockets, cranes even simplistic figures. I loved the strange printed features and details that were given form when pressed into a vague 3d shape by a machine. I was also obsessed with the Ladybird children’s book, The Elves and The Shoemaker. The way the flat component shapes were laid out the night before and then transformed into beautiful three dimensional shoes by morning was pure magic.

To construct my figures I roll out flat sheets of clay that I cut when leather hard, using paper templates that I have developed for each piece, rather like a tailor (or the shoemaker in the fairy tale) uses patterns. I build each component separately (feet, legs, torso) before joining them together. I generally fire larger elements in sections (eg figure and moped) often lying down or in a bespoke handmade setter. Once fired I assemble the finished glazed parts with steel pins and epoxy glue in order to achieve the dynamic poses.

I predominately use Scarva ES20 white earthenware hand building clay which is then decorated with commercial underglazes and glazes sometimes with the addition of decals and lustres. I often use textures and decorative patterns at different stages of the making process. This may involve incising pattern into plaster bats and taking latex moulds which can be applied to surfaces.

As a craftsperson I have always strived to develop my skills in in order to push the quality and finish of my work as far as I possibly can. It’s important to me to continue trying to innovate even if that is in a small way.

Photography by Shannon Tofts