"I am one clay maker in a broad spectrum of people working in this medium that I love, and find so physically comforting. I have equal respect for all of us. I see the categories, but no heirarchy. Potter? Ceramic Artist? I certainly feel the art and the poetic weight in many beautiful works by those who would describe themselves as potters- in Australia, Paul Davis' tea bowls and Jane Sawyers platters and large bowls come to mind immediately. I surely owe any craft I have in making my forms to centuries and centuries of potters before me.
But I can say that in a number of my works, I have an intent to communicate some things that are beyond functionality. Without concise messages or intent therein, I might instead call them fragments of clay poems or songs... written in the ancient language of earth.
And these fragments are to do with yearnings of the soul, concepts of balance, our connections to all organic life and our inner resonance with certain organic shapes.
The layered forms in particular are relating to time. They are made slowly, each small working piece being made purposely to relate to the last, as they build together into the final shape. I come and go from them so that they change from the original idea. I want time to have that impact. Memory, fleeting moments, feelings, responses.... the clay will take a different direction as these move through. Taking time to reflect and respond in a spacious way is becoming radical in an increasingly urgent and crowding world.
If the viewer 'reads' any of this in any way and responds, if there's resonance, that's a a genuine pleasure for me. In any case, I plow on regardless. Clay tends to do that to you...
Living between the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island provides so much visual and emotional stimulation and connection to land and sea. Each day different, each inspiring."