Address:
13 Bornais
South Uist
Scotland
H58 5SA
Telephone (UK):
01878 710360
Some examples of other ceramic work:
Thrown Landscape Form
Landscape Bowl
Thrown & altered serving platter
Bowl made of local materials
(Content updated April 2010)
Exhibition Piece:
Bird Line
Detail from Bird Line
Inspiration:
Winter on South Uist
Mingalay Guillemots
Bird Sculptures:
Great Auk sculptures
Black-throated Diver
Razorbill sculpture
Nine on Line
The ceramic piece I made for the ‘Nine on Line’ exhibition is intended for a garden. It is constructed by rolling clay into a long line and coiling it into a form, the line is then continued externally as a decoration.
The visual blue line that runs through the ‘Nine on Line’ exhibition, symbolizes the linking of people of similar interests through the internet. On my pot it alludes to ‘Bird Line’, an internet site for people interested in birds, that often brings birdwatchers to the island to see rare birds.
However, my birds in this instance are not rare but based on ‘troglodytes troglodytes hebridensis’, the Hebridean wren that nested in my workshop.
Hebridean Wren Fledgling from studio nest
About me
I moved to South Uist, one of the Western Isles of Scotland, or Outer Hebrides, in 1999. I love the remoteness and the abundance of wildlife; nature is not yet tamed on South Uist. Although as everywhere it is slowly in decline and endangered by global warming.
I am inspired by the natural landscape, and am constantly intrigued by the natural resources that I can find and use as ingredients for glazes. Putting peat ash - that I have dug as peat for warmth in the winter, from a bog that continues to grow - into glazes gives me great interest and a feeling of continuity with past potters, (and Crofters) who at one time only had local ingredients to use. I also find iron, and a clay slip glaze that I can collect on the shore.
At work, digging for iron Close encounter with Skua
Although I have been making functional ceramics, mainly thrown on the wheel, for many years, the honours degree course at The Glasgow School of Art has been a wonderful opportunity to expanded my ceramic knowledge, and it has encouraged and supported me in directions I would not otherwise have gone. Distance learning in this way is a real asset to people who live in remote places, as I do.
Although, to the observer, my ceramic production may seem varied, the inspiration is all drawn from my environment. The line, curve and colour all come from the landscape and wildlife, whether it informs my more functional pots, sculpted birds or the larger thrown pieces. The same sense of form flows from one object to another, and is the common denominator of all my work.
I sell my work directly from my workshop, and locally through a shop that we collectively run as the ‘Uist Craft Producers’.