UCA Craft Residency 2025-2026
You & I are, Earth
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December 2025
Second gas firing with mixed results.
Practiced throwing big with Gareth Mason.
The first rock I cast in the big mould made it out of the bisque in one piece. I started decorating it with black iron oxide. I didn't really have any concrete plans or ideas as to where it was going or why. I was reflecting on my time in the UK today compared to a few years ago. I had a lot of friends in London in my early twenties, currently approaching 30 I felt rather lonely, but also more comfortable in my own company. As I started illustrating the rock, images of relationships from the past and present emerged. There was also something quite fascinating about taking a 2D image, which doesn't feel flat and 2D in the mind, and forcing it on to a 3D form (the rock), warping and stretching it on to another dimension. Like taking a memory out of your mind, the feeling of it: real, big, faint, detailed, distorted, muddled, confusing, changing, and placing it in the physical world.
January 2026
Started illustrating a second big rock with cobalt carbonate.
Both rocks side by side.
February 2026
Up until this point I had focused on experimenting with gas firing and the technicalities as well as illustrations on my big rocks. However, in February I received the fantastic news that The Craft Pottery Charitable Trust Annual Award had granted me funds to continue experimenting with glaze casting. I started working on the glaze casting in tandem with my big rocks.
The original Serpentine rock from Cornwall.
The project I developed in relation to exploring glaze casting was intricate. But I am going to try and explain it as simple as I can here:
I have a Serpentine rock from The Lizard, Cornwall.
I make a plaster copy of the rock to document its shape and size.
I make a mould from the rock with a recipe I developed that can withstand temperatures above 1260°C.
I crush the entire rock and place it in the mould.
I fire the crushed rock and mould at a very high temperature.
What emerges from the kiln is a "new" rock. Its exactly the same minerals as the old rock, just jumbled up, moulded to its original form. I call this a glaze cast.
Steps 2-6 are repeated.
The first glaze cast from the Serpentine rock.
Plaster copy of the first glaze cast.
The second glaze cast from the Serpentine rock.
Silicone moulds for making plaster copies of each stage of the Serpentine rock as it changes throughout the process.
Plaster copies of (from left to right): the original big Serpentine rock, the shrunken version of the original Serpentine rock and the first glaze cast. Furthest to the right is a silicone mould of the second glaze cast together with the second glaze cast.
The high-temperature kiln moulds, plaster copies and current stage of the Serpentine rock (2nd glaze cast). Attempting to show the stages of the process.
The development of the Serpentine rock in February 2026: Plaster copy of the original Serpentine rock, plaster copy of the first glaze cast, the second glaze cast.
Meanwhile, I fired my big rocks to vitrify the oxides and sinter the clay bodies. I was very nervous that the high heat and thin casts would cause the form to slump and distort. But everything stayed intact.
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