Potters thrive on challenges. I have been looking for a way of continuing
to make my familiar creatures, using the simplified shapes evolved over
the years but concentrating on the natural decorative qualites of clay.
For many years the hollow shapes have been built up from flattened strips
worked into sculptural shapes carefully smoothed to take incised and painted
decoration.
Now I am using rolled-out coils that are round and fat, worked into patterns
as the shape is constructed. Once in place, careful pressing will join them
without loosing their freshness -- clay is soon over-worked. I was taught
to handle clay like this by my mother, Denise Wren, when I was four years
old -- seventy years ago! Little flat spirals turned into snails with
enquiring eyes on stalks -- my first creatures in clay.