Interview to the artist by Rachelle Gryn Brettler, from our Anniversary Book
I am very wary of the daylight hours because of walking. I walk every day on the farm – we are farmers, sixth generation farmers here in the Fens.
I have references rammed here in the studio: I made a series of work that is all about envelopes, envelopes have amazing patterns on the inside – with their repeat patterning; a series about Jupiter and Mars when those beautiful images from NASA came; I have fonts – the text – I like the design, the greys, the blacks with the white, and the proportion of the colours but not necessarily what it is saying; the Guardian weather forecast – with the physical movement of the wind across the country. I think it is the idea of charting or a pattern for dressmaking – with the idea of lines and messaging. So, it is all here but it does not necessarily get used immediately. Sometimes it is sort of subconscious and it just comes in.
I am totally process led. I am one of the few people in life that are totally inspired by industrial techniques. So, the starting point for this entire process was to try and find an alternative use of an industrial piece of equipment that was already in use in Stoke-on-Trent, and I wanted to change the way we cast. But it would not have been without Edward Minton who helped me resolve individual problems, that I would have got there. I have worked with this technique ever since, just trying different things. It is the technical application of an idea, what I suppose inspires me.
I make my work on a whirler – it is an industrial piece of kit that spins around very fast, and without this I cannot make a thing. My father and I made it ourselves after I graduated, we just knocked it out and it does not look pretty, but it works. It is farming ethic maybe that you just make things do and make things happen. My dear old whirler has been going for 40 years.
I pour liquid clay into it and I use centrifugal force to cast. I can cast with a very small amount of clay and because it is a random process, because it is spinning, each piece is totally unique. There is a differentiation depending on my mood, depending on my palette, depending on the temperature – if it is hot, the clay becomes more fluid. The pieces are made in movement and depending on how I pour in that machine, that dictates the patterning. So, you have to be intuitive, at one with the piece whilst you are making it.
We were told we cannot mix bone china and porcelain as they have different shrinkage rates. I am just totally challenged by material and technique really. Pushing boundaries, maybe. It took me a long time, but I did it. The body is always porcelain, but I play with the bone china. I love the contrast of the white of the bone china and the cream of the body. It goes in perfectly round and creates a warping, a very different feel. If I am feeling more sedentary I tend to make these pieces.
There is absolutely no colour anywhere in my work - it is just blacks, whites, and I recently did some light blues and dark blues, maybe that is the Fen sky - but that is as colourful as I go. I have a very restricted palette and a very restricted technique because I actually think that more creativity comes in at that. I only ever make three shapes – small, medium, large. That decision is done. And it is either about movement or sedentary. Then I just try and bring external influences in that.