Hi!
I'm Cathy and I'm an art teacher (GCSE, A Level and Arts Award) and I am a small batch, hand made ceramicist (B.A., M.A., B.Ed.).

My wonky ceramics are mostly inspired by my favourite place - the seas and Jurassic Coastline of Purbeck in Dorset where my partner lives and where I go walking as often as possible, filling my pockets with fossils, bits of sea washed glass and pebbles from the beaches. I then add these items to my ceramics to create links to the sea.

I want to be intimately involved with the natural properties of the materials that I use (I grew up with a clay soil garden and have always been fascinated by the fact that I can just dig up the ground and make it into something beautiful and functional.
I love the process of hand making the work - the dynamic relationship between me, the maker, the pots I am making, and the very earth that they are made from. I strive to try to bring you closer to my vision via the work I produce, using the land itself.
I began as a painter, then I attended ceramics classes for 3 years, learning about throwing and hand building, glazing and different clays. I also attended several classes at Stoke Potteries.

I loved the lessons so much that in August 2017 I bought my own wheel and kiln and converted my bike shed into a back garden studio. It's small, but I love being in there, elbow deep in clay.

I tend to rush the throwing of the pot, which is why they are always wonky - even if they come out perfectly I often push and pull them until they get a little wobble, a little undulation, an irregularity, just like the land and the sea.

My main passion is in the glazing. I am an abstract painter so the glazing process fascinates me! I always hope that my customers notice that my colour combinations and textures suggest analogies with real life - the flow and ebb of the seas, the textures of the fossil cliffs and myriad colours of the rockpools.

My hand made ceramic art draws on natural forms and interacting colours - I'm preoccupied with the relationships of colour - tone and hue - the juxtaposition of dark and light, textured and smooth, and in particular the alchemical process in the kiln. The excitement I feel when I lift the lid is palpable!

When glazing, there is a tendency among potters to use the 'less is more' approach.
Unfortunately for my wallet, I believe that 'more is more' with glaze application. I sometimes spend more on the glaze (and the box I post it in) than the value of the pot itself! But I love glaze and I love the textures and the surprise colours that can combine during firing. I want to emphasise the luscious depths of colour using a very costly multi-layered approach to glazing. I try to replicate the myriad colours in a rockpool, the graunch of the pebbles on a beach being pulled back by a wave, the froth of the breakers on the shore and by layering textures I try to present time and history on the surface of the clay so that the pots have an archaeological feel to them that combines the age and history of the Jurassic Coast with the fleeting subtle change of light and shadow as a single day passes across the sea.
I try to paint an environment on my pots as I would on a canvas, so that, if successful, the viewer can stand and view and discover things within them that I have seen in the pools of Dorset's beach or the inland woodlands where I go foraging for mushrooms.

Every now and again I dabble in bronze sculpture with the help of my partner David who owns www.verdigrismetals.co.uk - he is a superbly high quality metalsmith with a massive studio (not just a little garden shed) and he has three rooms full of professional equipment!

Bronzes are naturally quite pricey in comparison to other pieces, but if you look at the fact that most bronze casters actually do 'cold casting' where their 'bronzes' are just resin with bronze powder in it, call 'bronze cast' then David's sculptures are actually a bargain because they are REAL SOLID BRONZE metal and highly polished, which you can't do with resin. Resin is always patinated or dull brown, so you can tell real metal via the shine! He also hand makes bowls out of iron or steel in the shapes of ammonite fossils.

Well, thank you for looking and I hope that you like what you see! I am currently building my own website (it's built from scratch, so it's taking ages!) and if you sign up to my 'coming soon' page you will receive a 20% off discount code to use in my shop for the duration of the time you are signed up. If for some reason you don't receive the discount code, please let me know and I will message it to you personally.

I have another shop on Etsy, Kinkyboodle, where I sell hand made / hand painted clothing. I thought it best to separate them because they are nothing like each other.

My dream is that my Etsy shop and website take off and allow me to become a full time maker!! Thanks for helping me along that path...
Bye!
Cathy xxx