Finding love for the material again after burn out.

Early 2024 I was struggling with depression and burn out. I had lost my love of working with clay. It had become a job and it started to feel like a chore to make with clay. I was also experiencing a huge creative block. At this time I tried remembering the beginning of my clay days, when playing with clay was filled with joy. One day I just went into the studio and grabbed a small ball of clay, I squished it between my thumb and first finger creating a kind of worm or ribbon, like what you do when testing soil—it felt really good. I was engaging with the material without any concern for outcome, just immersed in the tactile experience. I decided to make these ‘worms’ anytime I felt stuck. I have made many worm and each time I try to stay present with the material. The feeling of making them as a chore would creep up. I had to continually remind myself to just enjoy the process. I decided not to fire these as another step in letting go; instead they will be reclaimed and turned into something else, a good way of capturing just a fleeting moment.

I installed my ‘worms’ from the past 6 months. Each one shows my finger print, yet they are all different. Some are made with my right hand, some with my left. This was a process learnt from the artist Sam Gold, a therapeutic somatic process. Gold makes work that joins the human body with the clay body and I guess this is part of what I am doing—reconnecting with the clay and in turn, my body.