I love the immediacy of working in sculpture clay – the ease of shaping forms, and if it is not right, so easy to correct…  

This is a very personal series – about middle-aged women’s bodies!  How, why, do we eventually get to look like that!  But there is also a celebration of defiance here.  The figures stand or sit, unembarrassed, naked, hiding nothing of the lumpy adipose that has accumulated over the years, the tired used breasts undisguised by uplifting bras.
   
The risk factor in Raku firing epitomizes the vulnerability of middle-aged women’s bodies – if we get through this passage of time, the results can be incredibly rewarding.  The process is intense.  The Raku technique requires a rapid firing until the terracotta figures glow in luminous transparent orange. The figures are then removed from the heat and smothered in sawdust to carbonize the glaze before being plunged into cold water.  Each firing produces unique unpredictable effects.  The figures were all glazed in different proportions of lustrous copper matte, copper carbonate, smokey lilac and smokey blue.

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