Breathe

So here is 2025 & breathe.  It is emerging I only seem to manage to write one 'blog post' a year!  So lets get on with it.  

After Potfest last year, I was feeling urged to make smaller more accessible art and I decided to experiment with printing on clay: this technique's is something I have longed to try on my largescale work, but time constraints and deadlines have meant it kept falling by the wayside.

Me being me, I wanted to make screen prints of my own images (rather then just buying premade ones) so I began the process of turning my studio into a dark room (my friend gave me an extra pair of blackout curtains I cut up) finding a dark room light to expose the screens and creating imagery that I wanted to print. 

Boy, what a learning curve it turned out to be.  Watching countless YouTube Videos and reels I slowly realised that our 'Instagram' reality is very different from the trials and tribulations of actually attempting something new.  The videos tend not to show the hours and hours of preparation, the countless times they go wrong.  Screens under exposed, over exposed, film not washing out of the image, film washing off the screen completely.  The printing of the image to be 'burned' onto the screen has to be a certain level of blackness to ensure the perfect exposure.  The long and the short of it - it's hard, its costly and it took about 3 months of graft to produce even one I was happy with.

I also tried other methods, and created a series of stencils, cutting them myself with my cutting machine, it is all very labour intensive.  Everything artists do is labour intensive!  And that is not even beginning to explain how hard it is to make a FLAT tile.

Not being one to be put off by others telling me 'it's too hard - don't even bother' I wanted to make porcelain tiles, around 2mm thick.  As I use paper clay for my largescale work, I had an image in my mind of them having ripped edges, like torn paper and as they weren't for tiling the bathroom with, could be warped and wobbly edged - I am not a lover of straight lines.  Creating tiles of this nature that didn't crack was another thing that nearly cracked me!

So, that insanity aside, & to cut a very long story short, I ended up with around 32 useable tiles, that I envisaged needed beautifully crafted box frames to sit in.  So I went next door to my neighbour, who also happens to be the Owner/Proprietor of 'Wood'en Things' and asked him to make them for me (as I said - I am not good with straight lines!).  It was at this point I was starting to realise they needed a completely different brand to my fine art. 

So Lottie&Jax was born, I had thought of the name when my daughter arrived, but at the time, had no idea it would end up being linked to this work.  It is inspired by the innocence and curiosity of childhood, the layers of narrative that build around us & form us and our character.  Charlotte (Lottie) has always been my muse, from the first photographs I took of her as a baby to modeling for my first tentative steps into sculpting.  Maybe more importantly though, for reminding me on a daily basis that wonder, curiosity and openness about the world are what brings magic into our lives.

I am tentatively finding a place for this body of work, I realise that it is the first time I have produced artwork that can be reproduced, in print, in stationery, in home decor - and I am quite excited to see where it will take me.  Sculpture is and always will be my first love; from the first few months in Art School I knew my mind worked best in three dimensions, but is lovely to broaden my horizons and I will update you on where these new pieces will be showing up as soon as I know!

2025 holds the promise of more exciting shows, namely Clay North East in April, and one of my absolute favourites Potfest at Scone Palace in June.  Before starting to work in earnest towards those shows I have a large private commission to complete and Lottie&Jax to get out in the world.  So for now, thank you for reading!  Watch this space.... & don't forget to breathe.