Embrace

Embrace is currently part of the Society of Designer Craftsmen’s ‘UnCommon Ground’ presentation at Collect 2026, at Somerset House in London.

This piece responds to the 'Uncommon Ground' theme through a new approach to making for me. Before now, as you’ll see in my gallery of works, I usually begin a collection with a single piece and gradually build a family of related works, with obvious familial traits. With Embrace, however, I genuinely had no idea how the final piece would look.

I began with a single slab of clay and cut three interlocking shapes from it, then started coiling upward. The three sections were intentional: I wanted to create something in response to becoming a parent – a work that would represent my new family of three. I see so clearly now how our actions and attitudes shape one another, how we grow to accommodate each other, and how lovingly we hold one another within our small family.

The forms grew intuitively at first. As they developed, I had to make increasingly conscious decisions about balance and form, ensuring the reciprocating curves worked in harmony. Building slowly, coil by coil, lends itself to this thoughtful, reflective evolution.

This piece marks several firsts for me: working from the seed of a narrative, the introduction of concave curves, the careful consideration of negative space between interlocking elements, and the inclusion of an enclosed form. In doing so, the work moves beyond the vessel and further into a sculptural realm, where independence and connection coexist.

Process:

Slab the base, coil the walls, scrape, scrape, scrape and scrape some more! Dry insanely slowly to avoid cracking (I left this group lightly wrapped for months - a bit excessive!). Bisque-fire to just over 1000'C. Wash with an engobe ever so slightly tinted with a green stain to tone down the creamy clay colour - mixed by me. Fire to cone 8 (around 1260'C). Complete!

Materials:

White groggy stoneware clay with a stained engobe wash.