V&A Residency - July 2010

In July I was very happy when I was offered a short graduate residency in the ceramics studios in the V&A ceramics galleries.

I shared the space with recent Royal College graduates Matt Raw and Amy Hughes and my friend and fellow Brighton graduate Alice Walton. While Pheobe Cummings, another Brighton alumni was next door doing a 3 month residency, creating beautiful unfired clay landscapes.

During my time their I produced a small collection of work inspired by the collection in the new ceramics galleries. I built upon processes used to create my The Gift Shop pieces; dissecting, reconstructing, press moulding, and in particular, screen printing; as it’s such a quick way of getting drawings and ideas directly onto the clay.

When exploring the collection in my first few days of research, I was drawn to the Staffordshire figures of mythical creatures and their bizarre ugliness! I based my work on these Staffordshires, creating my own grotesque creatures on simple, faux marble bases.

While in the studio I also had the opportunity to interact with the public, as they’d often wonder in through our open door, discussing the processes I was using and their engagement and connection to ceramics (often they or a family member were a ceramicist.