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As a child I loved exploring and digging for treasures.  A museum visit as an adult reignited my curiosity, and reintroduced me to muddy clay.   In 2018, at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum Crete, I became fascinated by a display of 3,000 year old egg-shell-thin ceramic cups.  How did the Minoan artisans do this?  I signed up at a local pottery studio as soon as I got home.

 

A few years on and I've made significant inroads into 10,000 hours of ceramic practice.  Nowadays I always have my sketchbook with me.  Drawing settles forms and ideas in my head.  I enjoy how, gradually, my hands and the clay work together to create from my sketchbook.  The results often surprise me (and more often frustrate me - but that's clay for you).

 

Ceramics have been made and used by human hands for tens of thousands of years. Clay is ordinary and familiar, and infinitely varied.  This is what draws me to it.

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The process that formed the Minoan egg-shell-thin cups remains a mystery to me, waiting to be discovered.  (No spoilers please!)