About the Artwork
I make ceramics and draw, creating figures and structures that evoke personal and common paradoxes. The work is broadly figurative. Ceramic works occupy an interesting and ambiguous place between art, craft and design, taking on different guises depending on how the work is conceived and the context in which it is shown or used. This mobility makes the medium even more flexible than the raw material and more open to manipulation and conveying meaning. My work has a strong experimental process behind it, whatever I plan the work may not conform to my original map, it tends to find its own way with its own physical and visual logic. This makes an unpredictable technique even more capricious and ideal in many ways as an art medium as it has an inbuilt tendency to randomise the resulting work.
There is a constant struggle that goes on between control and letting go in both the conception and production of the artwork.
My work currently takes the form of still lives, vehicles, figures and hands. On the topic of hands we have a rapidly changing relationship to working with our hands. Craft or ‘tacit’ (bodily know-how) skills are now more likely to be part of our leisure rather than our everyday work. Whatever skills that I use in handling the material and understanding how it works may show in the finished item but the work also has other content which is likely to overshadow the display of dexterity – both things are going on at the same time, and they make the work very engaging to produce.
Makers Headroom
MakersHeadRoom is a weekly online group conducted over Zoom. We work together as a group of individuals, to share our presence and our energy in a virtual space where we concentrate on making. The session is conducted without words but with microphones on. That way you can positively hear the presence of others.
There are two 1 hour sessions on a Monday starting at 3pm (BST) and continuing at 4pm until 5pm. MakersHeadRoom started in mid April 2022 and now meets weekly (with occasional breaks) sign up for the emails or see the Instagram feed for updates
A new name
Who exactly are The Glimmerists? – Well it could be you – if you want.
The Glimmerists is the new name for my email newsletter. I have been studying recently how to work more effectively with all my online resources – so that’s Social Media, This website and my Email list which now has a new name:
Introducing The Glimmerists
The idea for The Glimmerists came at a time when things on the world stage were looking particularly bleak so the concept of something that included hope and creativity in the form of art seemed like it might ring a bell with people.
At the core of my work is a constructive drive that is really useful in countering cynicism and the inclination to give up which is so often fuelled by news media and the general reverses that life throws at us individually.
So The Glimmerists is intended as a way of keeping in touch with the notion that there is a glimmer of hope in even our darkest moments. Our very human need to create comes from a place that is built into our psyches which is about survival and mental resilience and I dearly hope that is evident in the artworks I make and that the new newsletter will help spread some of the the benefit that comes with the impetus to be personally creative.
Goodie bags
If you do sign up for The Glimmerists you will get a coupon code that gives you a 50% discount on my new Limited Edition Prints
I have two mailing lists
That’s right, I now have two mailing lists
- The Glimmerists is this list above – join if you want to keep in touch with my sculpture (and drawing) work
- MakersHeadRoom sessions are weekly Monday online maker sessions. Join that list from the Makers Headroom page to get the weekly email invites with the Zoom links
Artists Insight
Artists Insight is an opportunity for artists to meet with another artist and take an overview of the state of their practice in terms of personal meaning, long term aims, and job satisfaction and consider how they might progress. These sessions could transform your art practice simply by helping you use the information you already have about yourself and your work more effectively.
Restart blog
The Restart blog is a series of a dozen posts on the A-N (artists newsletter uk) site about the fundamental issues facing artists trying to establish and maintain a practice in the uk and includes my quintessential piece on The Creative Cycle and my reflections on drawing, persistence, learning, earning, being an artist, on being male in the 21st century. Please check it out and see if any of it rings true to you, I think it applies to any creative endeavor and possibly any work process at all – see what you think