I remember making things from mud in the garden before I started school, and this involvement with clay and sculpture has been a reliable companion throughout my life. I was fortunate to attend a school which valued creativity and where I was able to spend time in the pottery workshop from eleven years upwards. Making animal shapes was always a focus and I am still making forms which are inspired by animals, and by humans too, alone or in relationship to one another. These are usually Raku fired, an alchemical and unpredictable process which gives a stone-like quality, and which I feel enhances them.