“Through every country I’ve travelled, there was one object that connected us all, the humble clay pot.”

My hand-built ceramic vessels are strongly influenced by growing up by the sea in Wales, alongside my time living, teaching and travelling through South East Asia. Across each place, there was one object that connected us all: the humble clay pot.

Every vessel I make is unique. Using traditional hand-building methods, I explore the plasticity of clay and the relationship between maker, material and place. Beginning with a simple pinch pot, I coil each vessel slowly over several days, allowing time to reflect before adding the next layer. Once leather-hard, I turn back into the form, hand-carving excess clay using a mirror and turntable to create a balanced, tactile surface.

My recent work deepens this connection to place through a direct response to landscape. Along the South West of England and Wales coastlines, I collect small samples of sand from specific locations, which are wedged into the clay body. Through firing, these materials become fixed within the vessel; preserving place and creating a physical link between the work and its source.

The Cof y Cerrig (Memory of the Stones) collection draws from ancient carved stones along the North Wales coast, including sites connected to early Welsh language and history. These vessels are shaped through the same slow coiling process, using stoneware and raku clay, and respond to the textures, markings and presence of these weathered surfaces.

Across the collection, the vessels begin to embody the elements. Air is captured through naked raku, where smoke leaves soft, ghost-like markings across burnished clay. Fire is present in pit-fired forms, their surfaces marked by flame and ash. Water is explored through larger stoneware vessels, where sand and deep blue matte glazes echo the coastline. Earth emerges through carved and inscribed forms, holding texture, weight and material memory.

Surface and colour are developed through slips and glazes that I mix and test in the studio. Copper remains my primary colourant, producing a flux of blues and greens that reflect the shifting tones of the sea. In response to the ethical impact of copper mining, I have begun experimenting with creating verdigris pigment from reclaimed copper piping, working towards a more sustainable approach to these surfaces.

These vessels are quiet explorations of impermanence and legacy. Smoke, flame and glaze build up in layers across the surface, like memory held in the material. The clay carries traces of landscape, of touch, and of time.

South West Erosion Study I £490 Hand-coiled stoneware vessel made from St Thomas Clay with sands collected along the South West Coast Path worked into the clay body, embedding traces of the coastline directly into the surface of the piece. Layers of turquoise and deep cobalt flow through a custom barium matt glaze, coloured with copper oxide and recycled copper, with verdigris scraped from old copper piping and incorporated into the glaze

Tidal Strata - Constructed from rolled strips of St Thomas stoneware clay combined with sands collected from Torquay and Paignton beaches, the piece echoes sedimentary layers, fractured cliff faces, and compressed tectonic formations. Variations in thickness and spacing create a sense of instability and movement, suggesting landscapes under pressure, slowly altered through tidal force, weathering, and environmental change.

Title "Iaith Dros Fwg" - Language Through Smoke

Taith Ardudwy Collection. Title “Bryn Cader Faner” (Northern Section of Route)

Taith Ardudwy Collection. Title "Pont Ysgethin bridge" (Central Section of Route)

Taith Ardudwy Collection. Title "Pont Fadog" (Southern Section of Route)

"Sidmouth" hand-built stoneware clay with a small amount of sand embedded in the body to reflect the redness of this rustic coastline.

St Ives Collection. Hand-coiled with St Thomas Stoneware clay with inserts of sand collected from location.

"Teignmouth" hand-built stoneware clay with a small amount of sand embedded in the body to reflect the rustic coastline.