I’m often asked where my interest in ceramics comes from.
Around the age of five I was handed a small pot and subsequently informed it was made with cow dung. I later discovered it was a pinch pot — part of a pair — made in Algeria in the 1920s. Miss Castle, to whom the pots belonged, had been a missionary living on the side of the Atlas mountains with the Kabyle people in the first half of the twentieth century. She lodged with my aunt on her return from Africa and died in the early 70s. Years afterwards my aunt went into a care home. As we cleared her house in order to sell it a few of Miss Castles’s belongings came to light. Intrigued by the cow dung pots and photographs of Algeria, I kept hold of them. The two pinch pots sat on my kitchen windowsill for years. The photograph eventually found their way into the loft. However, it’s fair to say this early introduction to ceramics gave me an interest in the subject — beautifully decorated pots often caught my eye. Several decades later, while an undergraduate studying for a fine art degree, I remembered the pinch pots and rediscovered the photographs. I made digital copies of the images so they could be included in an art installation and investigated Miss Castle’s life in Algeria, learning more about the Kabyle people. I learnt how the Kabyle women created their ceramic pieces, which they often decorated in red, black and cream with a secret language of symbols. Their process of making ceramics was ritualistic with different aspects of the construction completed at different times of the year. There are examples of Kabyle ceramics in the V&A’s ceramic section. Over the summer break I became a regular visitor to the museum and in the second year of my degree I chose to incorporate ceramics into my practice. The first pieces I created were heavily influenced by those Kabyle ceramics.
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About MeWhile studying for a degree in Fine Art I discovered clay. Studio
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