Seven Dials Artists Group
The White House on the Corner 6 Guildford Road

Michèle Findlay - 35cm ceramic figures and wire and glass jewellery.			inspiration
swanning	rain	reconstructed

 

My work comes from inside me, the images that populate my mind are reflections of the emotions and desires of a woman.  Over the years I have been driven to understand woman’s spirituality as a way of understanding myself and to use my creativity to portray it in my art. 

 

What I want is for women to understand their power and for men to acknowledge it.  Through my exploration of the spirituality and identity of female deities I create pieces which embrace both the light and the dark sides of femaleness.  Strength, vulnerability, intuition, shrewdness, tenacity, conciliation and love are all ambivalent attributes of women, only some women do not acknowledge all of these.  I want my work to reflect the complexity of women and to make other people question their own spirituality, gender, role and path in this time and place. 

 

There is a ritualistic element in creation which people often recognise in my work, likening individual pieces to reliquaries, standing stones and sacred icons.   I have always needed ritual but found it rather shallow when not part of a creative process.  And so I discovered a ritual in my own making process, a kind of symbiotic affinity with my material, a switching off of rational thinking and to a certain extent critical sight, a trusting to instincts which take me to a place where things begin to happen.

 

Exploration, experimentation and risk taking are fundamental to my work.  The process can be uncomfortable at times, but is a necessary part of my journey.   I like to use clay in a spontaneous way and have always been interested in collage techniques so that each piece is unique, in spite of the fact that some of my work in made in moulds.   I also like to add other materials to my clay pieces, once they have been fired, a kind of assemblage of bits and pieces which reverberate with my psyche.   I have developed all my own glazes, though a process of adjustment of already existing glaze recipes and through experimentation; my palette is subdued and inspired by the colours of our Earth from which the oxides I use are drawn. 

 

visit my website at: www.clay-works.co.uk

email me: michelefindlay@clay-works.co.uk

 

6 Guildford Road

Brighton

East Sussex

BN1 3LU

 

tel: 01273 729751

 

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