The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe Investing in Rural Areas
Starting my adult life I trained and worked as a Toolmaker and development engineer. This satisfied me for a while, but I was desperate to be more creative. I had always had a passion for art and this was always a primary focus for me since childhood and an urge to pursue it was not going away.
I taught myself how to paint with oils and made sculptures with metal and other materials, but I didn’t know how to be an artist or how an artist should work, this kept me in a kind of limbo of producing some pieces, but not knowing what to do next. Eventually at the age of
thirty two I sold my house and enrolled on a Foundation course at Hereford college of Art, where I discovered I was interested in ceramics as I felt this gave me everything I wanted as regards form, colour and texture. This led onto a degree course at Cardiff where I honed the
skill of throwing on the potter’s wheel and studying stoneware glazes.
As well as working at my studio I also ran the ceramic department at Hereford college of Art and then moving to teach at the Royal National College for the Blind. This work allowed me to develop a direct way of working with clay which came from constantly doing quick demos
for the students which is still active in my work today. I also gain an incredible amount of knowledge in this field during this time.
