My
great mentor, teacher, friend and neighbour in the UK is Jim Robison. Jim has
taught and inspired thousands of people throughout the world about the beauty
and particular idiosyncrasies that clay has to offer. Jim has played a significant
part in my development as an artist and a visit to Booth House Gallery in Holmfirth
is always an uplifting experience.
The work I developed in
Saudi Arabia which initially had reflections of the Yorkshire landscape and
rock architecture soon began to absorb the more barren colours of the desert
and the Asir region at large. Blue also became a significant colour in the
work reflecting the beautiful Red Sea with its abundance of sea life which
one would see daily when living in Jeddah.
There
have been a
number of
significant events
that have enabled me to focus and steal myself to make work. Seeing the early
work of Dave Roberts in the Holmfirth Art Week and reading an article where
he talked about being a teacher and an artist when he described the urge to
make work as a deep rooted one. Even without a studio space a dedicated artist
would clear the kitchen table late at night to make work because he was driven
to it by inexplicable force.
I
began to develop my early work after I moved to Jeddah Saudi Arabia as Head
of Art at the Continental School. My great passion at that time was rock climbing
and the mountains. My early work was influenced by my surroundings and experiences
and through working with textures and stoneware glazes I felt that the textured
vessels were reminiscent of road side crags with the criss-cross of routes and
lines similar to a climbing guide etched on them.
