Address:
13 Bornais
South Uist
Scotland
H58 5SA
Telephone (UK):
01878 710360
Some examples of other ceramic work:
Black-throated diver
Bowl made of local materials
Thrown work from local materials
Thrown work
Exhibition Piece:
Bird Line
Detail from Bird Line
Inspiration:
Birds on lines
Great Auk sculptures
Nine on Line
The ceramic piece I have made for the ‘Nine on Line’ exhibition, is a garden pot, intended for growing flowers in. It is constructed by rolling clay into a long line and coiling it into a pot, the line then continues externally in the decoration.
‘Nine on Line’ is about the linking of people of similar interests through the internet. The decoration on my pot is alluding to ‘Bird Line’, an internet site for people interested in birds, that often brings birdwatchers to the island to see a rare bird.
Shetland Wren Hooded Crow nest in wire coil
My birds are however in this instance not rare but based on ‘troglodytes troglodytes hebridensis’, the Hebridean wren that nested in my workshop, and birds in general grouped on telephone lines, that link me to the internet. Coils of wire that crofters have a habit of leaving lying around, one in particular that the wrens used to perch on, gave the idea of coiling a pot to be outside.
About me
I moved to South Uist, one of Scotland’s Western Isles, 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 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 dig up 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, who only had local ingredients to use. I also find iron, and a clay slip glaze that I can dig on the shore.
At work, digging for iron Close encounter with Skua
The degree course at The Glasgow School of Art has greatly expanded my ceramic horizon, and encouraged me to experiment in directions I would not otherwise have done. Distance learning in this way is a real asset to people who live in remote places, as I do.
I sell my work directly from my workshop, and locally through a shop that we collectively run as the ‘Uist Craft Producers’.