I have been creating ceramics since the 1970’s before, during and now after a career in teaching. My teaching involved ceramics and so I have been lucky to have had contact with clay and ceramic processes for over 30 years. Although not in full commercial production for the time I was teaching, I exhibited and sold my works, but the development of ideas and my ‘style’ was slow.
When I retired in 2011, this allowed time for this creative development, and to spend time in Portugal where I have a studio. During the time of setting up the workshops there, I started to paint and draw in colour what I saw around me.
These works of this period were in response to the visual experience of the part of Portugal, the Baixo Alentejo, where I live. They rapidly evolved into abstract works of colour and texture in a variety of media.
This exercised both an area of expression lacking in stoneware ceramics and a desire to form a new visual language that would inform the ceramics. I wanted to bring in more colour to complement my established ceramic forms.