How I got started with the Nerikomi technique and what the different terms used to describe it mean.

I started ceramics more than 15 years ago now, but it’s only in the last five or so that I started experimenting with colored clay. At first, I just used two clays I had on hand, white and red stoneware clays with similar shrink rates (and that is a very important factor). I wedged them separately then stuck them together and threw with them. I loved the result so I kept going.

Why is Ceramics less valued than other art forms? Is it too useful to be art? Devalued as a craft or because it is made of dirt? Shouldn’t your art be valued on its own merits and not the medium you are using to express yourself?

I am attracted to the Bastard Arts. I enjoy High Brow Arts too, especially paintings and literature, but Bastard Arts have a unique unpretentious appeal for me.

You might never have heard of the Bastard Arts because that is my personal nickname for the type of Arts I enjoy that have hybrid origins and are usually looked down on by the tenants of the Well-Born Arts. It’s not “pure”. In a world where diversity is finally getting its due, the Art World is like Voldemort and his Death Eaters who want their art to be pure blood and can’t adapt to a changing world.

My Artistic Journey,
or how I finally became an artist in my forties

I was 47 before I dared calling myself an artist. Before, I had a hobby. A hobby is a big blanket you can hide your fears and insecurities under. It helps you hide how much this thing you do any chance you get at the weekend and in the evening means to you. It hides the fact that this is the only thing in your life that keeps you going and sane. It feeds your soul. It’s the little square of blue sky in the prison cell.

Why it is important and frustrating to find your own style in order to get recognized as an artist.

Who am I? At 47 I had it mostly figured out when I decided to become a “professional” artist (Maybe one day I will be confident enough to get rid of the quotation marks) but becoming a professional artist means finding my STYLE with capital letters. It’s like going through puberty again.

Why having more than one passion is good for you and serves your art.

The 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire wrote a poem called “Correspondences” which states that the world is made of feelings and symbols we can experience that answer each other. Baudelaire might have had Synesthesia (a neurological condition that causes the brain to process data in the form of several senses at once), but that’s irrelevant. I like this poem because I like the idea that there are several ways to experience the same thing and that more than one sense can be involved. I definitely experience this in my art.

Embrace Materialism! Objects enhance our creativity, express who we are and teach us about the past.

The French writer George Pérec wrote a book called “Things” (les choses) in the 1960’s which has long descriptions of objects. The main characters are consumed by consumerism and measure their success by the number of things they can buy. Like Pérec, I used to despise objects too.