helsby - material nomad
the village of helsby, is in the county of cheshire, in the north west of england. though originally from the east coast of the uk, helsby is where my home is and i have been based there for the past 26 years.
helsby - mountskill quarry
as it’s name suggests, this site was once a working quarry called mountskill quarry. sandstone was extracted on the site from the early 1800s until the 1920s.
the geology of the site is one of its main features and it is designated a regionally important geological site. the site is part of the helsby sandstone formation which is a result of activity 280-250 million years ago. the rock wall and tunnel within the site were formed during the triassic period from river deposits and sand dunes. (merseyforest.org.uk)
the quarry, now a woodland park and nature reserve, is where i come and spend time when i return from my travels. it’s a place of history and nature, it is the keeper of stories and i find it helps ground myself - bringing a fresh perspective on what is important and reminding me that I am home.
some of the triassic sandstone recovered from the quarry was excavated from a building site that had been cut into the rock surface. this exposed the strata formations and enabled me to extract material that was in a pristine state - having not been exposed to the environment since triassic times - no pollutants had affected the sandstone.
adding these triassic materials into the clay becomes a continuation of their own geological journey. as part of the throwing and firing techniques, they go through processes of extraction, suspension and compression and through periods of heating and cooling.
the sandstone has three very distinct colours running through it, identifying varying amounts of lime and iron - although these are lost through the making and firing processes. i use the clay with the quarry materials to make compositional work using narratives of a historical and social context and in the making of one-off forms.
how i treat the gathered materials before i add them to the clay and how i add them can give very different results. for this one-off vessel i did not over process the triassic materials from the quarry, instead choosing to leave them in a raw state before adding them into the clay. i also left the outer surface unglazed which allowed the different particle sizes and materials to erupt and be more exposed, so one can keep discovering things about the vessel.
this close up of another one-off triassic quarry piece shows in more detail the surface texture. here the glazed interior of the vessel gives a gloss finish while the unglazed exterior is left with a very textured, tactile granular quality. this allows a very direct and immediate connection to the quarry and the triassic materials, to a time and a place.
helsby - wild clay
as someone that spends a large amount of time away from home, collecting and using local wild clay and materials within my work is an opportunity for me to re-connect. both the physicality of being in the local countryside searching, digging and the emotion of returning - the work talks about my personal relationship to the place and landscape that i call home.
wild clay is unrefined and taken directly from the earth, clay deposits, carrying mineral resources and geological informations, that are specific to that region and place. they can be unpredictable and so i must carry out processing and experimentation.
i had processed and refined some wild clay, excavated from our allotment in helsby. having added this into a porcelain form, the results were beautiful. as the wild clay fires at a lower temperature than the high fired porcelain it melted, causing some movement in the form.
i have recently been out to the village’s surrounding fields and have discovered and excavated more clay, which is currently drying out. i can then begin to process the materials - once processed i will begin to test the clay and record what happens here on my website.
a close up detail of the above vessel which shows how the wild clay becomes so much more fluid than the porcelain at the high temperature. it has a glass quality to it which is exaggerated more by the unglazed exterior of the form, clearly defining the differences in the materials.
this interior shot of the same vessel shows how the wild clay reacts with the glazed surface, as it bleeds into the glaze along its edge, this contrasts beautifully with the sharpness of the finer exterior line. the piece though not large in physical size contains so many details.
