Pottery lessons started at the suggestion of my Mum when I was about 19. I think the suggestion came from a couple of places: I was ‘good with my hands’ and the need for a new hobby was observed (this was perhaps less to encourage specific artistic pursuits, and more to steer me away from too much ‘going out’!). I enjoyed the 8 lessons I took at a pottery studio in Carina, Brisbane in 1981. There were few people learning so I had almost one to one tutelage and did 4 handbuilding lessons and 4 wheelthrowing sessions. I still have most of those naive early pieces - kept or returned to me as mementos.

It’s one of my earliest memories in life - making mud pies underneath our family house in Holland Park West (now Tarragindi) in Brisbane. I’m putting my love of clay down to a simple and nurturing upbringing that saw a dreamy kid (and her 4 siblings), enabled with exploration, creativity, imagination, activity and getting our hands dirty!

After those introductory classes, I played with clay a few times later - usually making gifts and experimenting with handbuilding techniques and glazing, in makeshift work spaces. There was a break for a long while with life, travel, family and work. I picked up clay again when I was studying Diversional Therapy in Toowoomba in 1999 when my girls were little. I was hooked then and the avenue for a life long passion in making and expression in clay was clearly signposted.

Since then, my family have continually supported me to make work which I do in a 3x3 metre shed with just enough working space, kiln, wheel and some quirky storage pieces. We’ve done family clay projects together over the years and we all have benefited as a family. Now that I’ve got more time, I’m able to fully develop concepts, refine my skills further, and sometimes just play and share, ‘in the shed’.

Designing, making, gifting work, entering local exhibitions and pottery club events, attending workshops (& have given a couple of simple ones myself) have all been such growth times with the critique of people too so as to keep developing.

I took my long service leave from my arts admin job and had an incredible overseas residency in May 2019 near Florence, Italy. I also took a porcelain jewellery workshop at the International School of Ceramics (La Meridiana, near Certaldo in Tuscany). That trip with the amazing support of my loving family was a life changing experience that I will always cherish!

As an extension of my artist-in-residency program in Tuscany in 2019, I’ ve developed my first solo exhibition Lo Strato: Time In Tuscany. Strata - layers; laying down of different coloured and textured clay slices to represent the layers of humanity that continue to live and work on top of, and sometimes near, Etruscan and Roman ruins. Other works refer to my experiences during my time in Tuscany.