I was born in Aberdare, South Wales, in 1971 and spent my childhood living on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The dramatic scenery was inspirational and I must have walked hundreds of miles in all weather over the mountains and along its rivers.
I moved to London in 1991 to join the Ceramics degree course at Middlesex University. Needless to say the change of pace was quite overwhelming but I relished city life and my work became less organic. Surrounded by countless people, traffic, buildings and using the Tube every day was bound to influence my work and it soon developed a harder edge. Machines, armour and buildings began to fill my sketchbooks and I took an incredible amount of inspiration from my many museum visits.
All this developed into the black and white raku vessels I make today.
After gaining my degree I was offered a lecturing post at a college in Hertford that occupied me for 4 years. I now live in Stafford with my wife Samantha (who also trained as a potter) and our Ridgeback 'Floyd'. I work as a designer/graphic designer for a local craft company which is the 'neat and tidy me' and serves to balance the 'muddy and messy me'.
I don't know how long this will remain in balance as we're expecting our first child in September 2006!
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