I first worked with clay in my teens, then again in my mid thirties. At the age of 40 I gave up the day job and went to Camberwell College of Art (now The University of the Arts London) where I took a first class honours in Visual Arts specialising in Ceramics.

Clay is such source of a joy, but it can also be frustrating. It is pure play but it also requires skill, determination and patience. One lifetime isn’t enough to explore the myriad possibilities it offers.

I first fell in love with throwing on the wheel and quite a lot of my work now is thrown and then altered. I like to create oval vessels as this gives me two distinct sides to decorate. I treat my thrown pots as canvases applying colour in a painterly way with a range of wooden and metal implements.

I also combine pots pinched from black clay, coloured to create sets and then framed to create a graphic wall pieces.

I am now based in Gargrave in North Yorkshire, where I combine making jewellery with throwing and hand building vessels.