LOCKERROOM

A thousand moths - Wall Sconce Placed at the front of the train kiln at @claykitchenportugal with lots of exposure to the Acacia tree ash we used to fire the kiln. Resulting in an intense blue glaze over this stoneware clay. Adorned with mother of pearl, red jasper, carnelian and hand made ceramic beads 21cm w x 18cm d 2025, Portugal

The apple falls far from the tree - Sculpture This piece was fired for 100 hours in an Anagama kiln on the east coast of Australia. The surface was glazed in a Shino, with the bead surfaces developed from foraged materials that I have collected around home including; Bellingen schist from the river, Wild Plum tree ash and Mango tree ash from my childhood home and Banksia tree ash from the trees that sit along the coast line of the nearest beach. With additions of Jasper, Mother of Pearl and Blue Sapphire. Sally Wattle Acacia tree was used to fire the kiln and its ash has landed on various parts of the piece. Photographs taken in Bellingen by @elisegellweiler

Chaminés de Saia de Monchique 01 A nod to Chaminés de Saia de Monchique, a small booklet of my father in laws that depicts photographs of the Chimneys in Monchique, Portugal Stoneware, Wood Fired 26cm h x 14.5cm w (top sculpture) 2025

Wearing a Reliquary Collar as belt and a custom floor length collar around the neck, photographed by @elisegellweiler

Reliquary Collar An adaption and expansion of place and memory into tactile object and form. To worship, revere, a place with artefacts created from made and collected site specific items/materials. An habituated shrine that can come with us as we depart, an ode to the universal locket, which held photographs of loved ones inside, worn around ones neck. Beads made here, with local materials in clay and glaze, now hold memory, place and experience, both in situ and on ones being. Beads are glazed with foraged materials including; 3 different clay bodies found and dug in the Algarve, Bellingen Mudstone and clay collected on the Mid North Coast in Australia. Wood Ash from Fig Tree, Hibiscus Tree, Olive Tree, Wild Holm Oak, Cork Oak, Apple Tree, Orange Tree, Camellia Plant, Wild Plum Tree. Some beads were left raw and glazed with the Acacia ash we used to fire the kiln. All beads are one of a kind, made and Wood/Salt Fired in Spain, Portugal and Australia. Can be worn as necklace or belt. Can also hang on the wall as rosary does. Woven onto 100% leather cord. 2026

At the end of December I drove from Barcelona to the west coast of Portugal to Wood Fire at @claykitchenportugal with @irishumm__studio & @___887l Here are some photographs I took of the two weeks spent with friends, old and new, firing, weaving and enjoying the end of a year and the beginning of another.

Photographs of the front of the kiln on opening, pieces covered in Acacia ash from the 80 hour Wood Firing at @claykitchenportugal over the New Year

Reliquary Collar - Wadding amulet The wadding necklace is inspired by 6th-7th century Frankish beads. The cornerstone of burial customs, in which the beads were placed in the tombs or graves of loved ones, for spiritual protection. Worn around the neck or fastened as part of clothing. Wadding is a waste product of Wood Firing. We place these small beads of clay/sand/sawdust under our work so that the piece does not fuse to the kiln or shelves. Once we remove our pots from the kiln, these beads are usually removed and thrown away. I’ve spent the last year collecting wadding from wood firings in Portugal, Spain and Australia. Many a drill bit has been used to individually drill, grind and polish every bead you see. This is a continued exploration of my Reliquary Collar series. An adaption and expansion of place and memory into tactile object and form. To worship, revere, a place with artefacts created from made and collected site specific items/materials. An habituated shrine that can come with us as we depart. Beads made here, with local materials in clay and glaze, now hold memory, place and experience, both in situ and on ones being. All wadding beads are one of a kind, Wood/Salt Fired in Portugal, Spain and Australia. Ceramic Wadding, Sea Glass, Lapis Lazuli, Carnelian, Woven onto nylon with 9ct gold hardware 2026 #australianceramics @australianceramics

At the end of the year I spent two months living and working with Berta in Barcelona. I then drove a car full of her sculptures we’d been making across the country to the west coast of Portugal where we Wood Fired them for 80 hours in the train kiln at @claykitchenportugal Photographed here are some of the many pieces, sitting at the front of the kiln covered in Acacia ash from the fire and one of my ash glazes. So wondrous to see Berta’s work unearthed from this kiln and firing 💙

Berta Blanca T. Ivanow. At the end of the year I spent two months living and working with Berta in Barcelona, an experience that has left me changed. Here are words by Kahlil Gibran in the book The Prophet that I feel reflect and relate to Berta as a mentor, artist and being; ‘You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that his arrows may go swift and far.’ ‘You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth… When you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and in keeping yourself with labour you are in true loving life, and to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret. And all work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself. And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. Work is love made visible.’ ‘The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.’ Thank you Berta, for leading me to the threshold of my mind. 💌 Photographs taken one afternoon at Bertas studio with her son Atlas.

3am, the end of the 80 hour Train Kiln firing at @claykitchenportugal over the New Year into 2026. These photographs were taken in the pouring rain. The closing of the firing abundant with air, earth, fire and water. To be immersed in this practice and these elements is unexplainable and something I will continue to seek for the rest of my life. Here we are, raking the ember bed for the final time, a last round of salt added to the salt chamber, observed from a far as the white haze forms and rises throughout the shed after the last salt stoke. Thank you CKP for another memorable firing and to all the potters I was able to share this experience with.

A thousand moths - Lamp Or, as some referred to this piece, the moth hotel. Exhibited at group show ‘you gave yourself to places so that they could give you back’ curated by @elizafugar Stoneware, Shino, Sally Wattle Acacia glaze from 100 hour Wood Firing in Anagama Kiln. Ceramic beads made and Wood Fired in Australia and Portugal, Mother of pearl, Red Jasper, Blue Sapphire 46cm h x 21cm w 2025, Australia