“The Welsh series, explores my childhood memories. Returning to areas in South Wales where I grew up and where my father worked as a miner. I began my journey in July, enabling me to gather a substantial amount of organic and manmade materials from the grounds where I lived and played.

The landscape was very different in the early 70s. Heavily mined and heavily scarred over many years of extracting coal from the ground. The trees on the mountains were removed and used for supports in the tunnels underground. Large slag heaps grew, where the mine waste was stored above ground. Punctuating the landscape where we played as children. This was the result of generations of heavy industry in the Rhondda Valley. My earliest memories of these areas are strangely in black and white.

On my return forty-five years later, things are so very different. The landscape has healed, nature has re-greened and the scars have softened. It took me slightly by surprise. I visited the nursery I attended, long reclaimed by nature and the house I lived in with my family and where I have my earliest memories. I wasn’t expecting this to be such a cathartic experience and I’m looking forward to developing more work over the next few months.

 My intention is to make a series of vessels using the foraged materials and the Saggar-firing process. Creating something beautiful from the challenging and less colourful memories of this period of time, beginning with these three pieces.”