Sheldrakes Panel Finished

A few pictures of the finished Sheldrakes Restaurant wall panel. It looked fantastic and although it took most of the day to put up, it was worth the great comments from the customers who were walking in and out of the foyer where we were installing it.

The restaurant has amazing views across the estuary so well worth a visit.

A massive job but hope it leads to more work like this.

Southport Ceramics Studio

Since leaving Southport College after they closed the ceramics department down, me and Don Parkinson, who ran the department, have been planning on opening our own independant pottery workshop. We manged to buy some of the equipment from the college, rent an industrial unit and we have now been open for a few weeks now.

Many of our ex students from the college have been coming in to use the space and it's been going really well.

We are planning to open officially in the summer and advertise courses for the public.

It's had such a great response from our students who are working in there and we have lots of plans to keep improving and developing the space so watch this space!

More panels..

Some of the finished panel surfaces - coloured with paint, enamels, sanded back and waxed.

Sheldrake Restaurant Panel

Hello, it's been a while since I last posted on here as I've been working on a large scale commission with a friend of mine, glass and ceramics artist Leandra Holder. I was waiting for the client's approval of the work we had done so far which we got a couple of days ago when the interior designers and restaurant owner came over to the workshop in Southport to have a look at the panel.

The restaurant is on the Wirral and overlooks the Dee Estuary, it has amazing views and is currently undergoing a £750,000 refit. Our panel will be the focal point as it will be in the new foyer area.

The panel is a little under 5 metres long and is made from panels of textured clay and dozens of handmade glass pebbles as well as beautiful rope effect ceramic sculptural forms and a specially written poem all by Leandra! She's worked incredibly hard on the panel.

It's based on the restaurant's location and has references to the sea, sand dunes, marshland and rivers. It looks pretty stunning at the moment and still has a little way to go before it's finished. The restaurant refit opens in three weeks time so we have lots to do!

                                                              The original design

                                                Detail of glass pebbles and rope effect

                                                                          The wall..

                                                            Preparing the clay panels

                                                               The map of the panel

More ruff stuff

Finally fired some of the first ruff pieces which I'm playing around with different configurations. I'm probably going to frame them and sell them as wall pieces, I think that'll work best.

The larger, elongated piece will be fired soon and is a copy of an Elizabethan lace collar. I really like the shape and will make some more like this.

New studio and more ruffs

So, finally found a new studio. Lovely and warm and quiet. Great. It now means I can crack on with the lace based work, the Willow Pattern design which is slowly taking shape and getting my new website up.

Hope Placement update and some lovely birds.

It was my first day back at Hope today and over Christmas I've had time to think about what I'm going to make there.

I've been looking at medieval clothing, especially intricate lacework and ruffs. Using the very fine extruded strings of clay, I intend to make intricate 3D forms based on these designs. Think it will be very exciting, very labourious and technically tricky but hopefully worth it.

Over Christmas we went to Wolverhampton Art Gallery and saw these amazing ceramic phoenix style birds from ancient China. They were made as roof ornaments but deserve to be seen up close.