My ceramic vessels have been strongly influenced by the ancient pottery of Northumbria, ritual vessels and twenty years spent in rural Africa.
When I was a child, museums were very much less "user friendly than they are today, musty objects placed in dusty glass cases, framed in dark Victorian mahogany. Labels, when there were any, were often hand written in faded brown ink, the information on them almost invariably posing more questions than it answered. The artefacts themselves were often of dubious provenance, having been brought back from some distant place by the local doctor, vicar or other noted amateur archaeologist. For me this dearth of information somehow increased the mystery and fascination of these objects and allowed my youthful imagination to weave my own mythology around them. My imagination was further fuelled by the location of my home among the Iron Age hill forts and Roman remains of Northumberland.
While the museums of today inform and educate, I feel that something quite wonderful has been lost. That sense of mystery, that made "Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not so successful, has gone. In my work I try to recapture a little of this mystery, the exact function of each vessel remains, and must remain, a mystery.
My current work is very personal and does not attempt to imitate the ceramics of any particular culture, it is my response to a lifetime assimilating and responding to the artefacts of ancient cultures. Each piece is a receptacle for my memories and a catalyst for your imagination.
