Over the last few months, we have been working on a different range of ceramics. This has involved lots of experiments, with the inevitable successes and failures that always come with working with new forms of ceramics.

I say ‘we’, but this has been a project mostly followed by Chris, with our son-in-law James as a co-conspirator. Michaela has been busy with other things, and also has a sensory objection to the heavily grogged clay that these new experiments havedemanded.

We are almost at the point of floating some of this new work, alongside other seatree pieces, in the form of ‘seatree elemental’

The point here was not only to push out into something new, but also to respond in a different way to our environment, our location and to overarching concerns about social and climate justice. The partnership with James has been important, as he is an oceanographer, spending time in the arctic doing research on melting ice. This has led him through dark places, but also into making his own art in response to the experience. Check out his website here.

Seatree elemental looks different from other seatree work because the process is very different. Using grogged or raku clays, which give much greater thermal shock protection, these pieces are typically pit-fired or raku glazed. Most still use our own poetry, but the themes of these poems are likely to be darker and used in a way that is much more ephemeral.

Here is a sneak preview of some of the new work- hopefully coming to the website shop soon!