Today is my final day in Gwithian Chapel

I have not made a body of finished work in the way I might have expected. There is no clear outcome or resolved installation. Instead, the time has been spent in a different way.

The chapel has given me space.

Both physical space and mental space.

Coming straight from three months in India and Morocco and returning to a small, cluttered studio, this felt a gift.  I have been able to lay things out, move them around, remove them again and sit with them. To bring objects in, test them and take them away without pressure.
There has been a lot of sorting and sifting. Trying to piece something together without yet knowing what the full picture is. Following threads, noticing connections without needing to arrive at a final answer.

Earlier in the residency I was working with fragments, frames and arrangements on the floor, looking for relationships between objects. Later, I found myself stripping things back, letting go of materials that were not working, and moving towards something lighter. Taking impressions, noticing shapes in the chapel itself, and responding in smaller, more direct ways.

Throughout this time, I have been thinking about sacred spaces. How space is used and how it feels .... different.

I’ve also had time to go through footage, sounds and photos I gathered while in India and Morocco, reflecting on moments of devotion, ritual, and the atmosphere of those spaces. This in itself has been hugely valuable.
Alongside this, I have been thinking about the way I work more broadly. During my time away, I made temporary arrangements as I often do when away from my studio. Small, instinctive groupings of fragments and materials that would be made, observed and then left behind. That way of working has continued here.

It has made me realise how much I value that kind of process. Work that is not fixed or permanent, but exists for a moment. Work that is more about attention, placement and response than about producing a finished object.

This has led me to question my relationship to ceramics. Whether I want to continue making more objects, or whether I want to move towards something more impermanent.  Working through interventions, using existing materials and allowing the work to remain open and unresolved.

If anything, these two weeks have been a return to a way of working that feels more open. Observing, responding and allowing things to unfold slowly.

I've been grateful for this time.

Today felt like a shift.

I have removed a lot from the space. The square frames have gone, along with many of the objects I had been working with earlier in the week. I needed to clear things back. It had started to feel too full, too heavy.  
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Clearing the space has made a difference. There is more room to think and more room to notice.
I found myself drawn to the wooden structure at the front of the chapel. There are carved shapes within the panels that I had not really paid attention to before. The form of the arch reminded me of spaces I have spent time in recently. It felt somewhere between a chapel window, a temple and a mosque, a shape most of us are familiar with.

I did not try to analyse it too much. I simply wanted to record it.

Using a Takuhon printing I took an impression of the carved wood. Rather than building something new, I was working with what was already there.

Strangely for me, I  added a small amount of colour. A faint mark of pink and orange. These are colours that have stayed with me since returning from India and Morocco. I have found myself drawn to them again without fully understanding why. The marks are minimal, not decorative, more like a trace, just a point of contact.

The process felt simple. I noticed something, it connected to something else in my memory, and I responded to it. I recorded it and left it open. Letting go of what was not working has opened up a different way of being in the space.
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I do not feel like I need to resolve anything yet. For now it is enough to continue noticing what is here and to respond in small, direct ways.

Over the past few days I have been catching up on writing and reflecting on the work, but today I am noticing how the space is slowly beginning to organise itself around how I naturally work.
I have made a small workstation for myself in the corner of the chapel. A table, my computer, books   It has become a kind of quiet nest where I can process ideas, next to the heater!

The rest of the chapel is slowly becoming a working space.

On the floor I have placed a number of square frames. I began doing this on the first day and the idea has stayed with me.  They are small fields of attention. Into them I’m placing fragments of my work. The fragments are currently stored along the pews simply so they are easy to reach. The pews are currently just acting like shelves in a studio. I am not sure if they will be part of the work. At the moment they are just practical.

The floor is where most of my attention is focused. Placing objects inside the frames, moving them around, taking them away again and trying something else. I’ve realised that what I am doing feels very similar to those puzzles you sometimes see in newspapers where you are given a set of words and have to find the hidden connections between them. The game is often about grouping things into fours.

Not so different from what I am doing here, looking for relationships between all the different strands I’ve brought in from the studio.  I collect and keep materials that might otherwise be overlooked, fragments of wood, broken ceramics, rusted metal, dirt. Over time these things begin to matter simply because they’ve been kept. They gather a kind of significance. I’m interested in how objects can hold traces of reverence, ritual and meaning. Maybe there is something about attachment there? Questions also about how one person might deem something valuable, important and presenting it in such a way that others can hopefully feel that.

For the moment I am simply allowing the chapel to function as an extension of my studio. I move between sitting in the corner writing and thinking and working on the floor with the frames and fragments. It is a slow process of arranging, noticing and rearranging.

It mirrors what is happening in my head. I am sorting through ideas and memories in the same way that I am sorting through objects on the floor.

This residency is less like a place where I need to produce something finished and more like a place where I can  work through these connections. 

I’m back in the chapel, settling into the space and thinking about ways forward .

Yesterday and the days before were mostly about reflection, processing the travel, the studio and fragments of work. Today I’ve brought selected objects from my studio, On my computer and iPad I have photos, videos and sounds from temples and mosques, as well as the small shard temples I made during my time away.
 
Now I’m trying to figure out how to use this time in the chapel. How to gather thoughts, whether to bring in digital material like video or photographs, and how—or whether—to link all these threads: the studio objects, the travel fragments, and the recorded experiences. Perhaps a formal link is not necessary. Perhaps the work will simply be about the coexistence of these things, and the attention and care given to them in this quiet space.

I’m doing what I do in my studio, moving and rearranging objects, sorting through fragments, noticing connections. At the same time, I’m doing the same in my head, sifting ideas, trying to make sense of what’s going on, seeing what matters and what can be left aside. 

The chapel feels like an extension of the studio, a place where this thinking and handling can happen, quietly and without interruption.

Van issues meant I didn’t get into the chapel today, but I have been reflecting on sacred spaces and on memories from recent travels. I am a week back from spending over three months in India and Morocco, spending time around temples and mosques, listening to the sounds and observing acts of devotion.

This is my third year doing this, and I have noticed that I am often drawn to making work in wastelands, beaches, roadsides or derelict buildings. I collect dirt, fragments, shards and small materials. I spend time selecting what to keep, what to photograph, and what to discard. I also film myself arranging and rearranging these objects, exploring connections and rhythms between them.
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I have not yet had the time to go through all the photos and videos or to fully make sense of what I was doing. This residency and the very act of being given this chapel, feels like a rare opportunity. It is a quiet, contained space where I can sit, think and gradually sieve through my thoughts.  

Coming back to the studio after time away was overwhelming. There were many different strands of work all over the place. The chapel allows two things to happen at once: I can reflect on India and Morocco, on the rhythms of ritual and attention that I witnessed and I can process the physical objects and materials that exist in my studio. Thinking and handling, observing and sorting, are happening together. The chapel residency will give me time to notice connections, make sense (or not) of fragments and consider how all of this might feed back into my work.

The question of what makes a place sacred continues to return. Is it the architecture, the actions, or the attention and care given by those within it? Remembering the temples and mosques and the devotion I witnessed, I realise it is often both. The space and the gestures within it, the rhythm of repetition, the focus, and the small acts of care make a place feel alive and sacred.

Having time in the chapel just after returning from months of travel feels deeply aligned. It is a perfectly timed opportunity to reflect, to process both experience and material and to make sense of the many threads of work.

I haven’t been in the studio for weeks. The motivation just… fell away. That awful “stuck” feeling crept in (I know I’m not alone) something like winter appearing, slowing things down, dulling the buzz I had in the summer. It’s like my creative energy cycles with the seasons. In summer, I’m all rush, all flow, bordering on manic.  But now, it’s like I want to hibernate. Ideas still swirl, but the urge to actually do, to create, to make is dulled. Sometimes, I think it’s just a part of how I work, a neurodivergent ebb and flow of excitement that crashes into burnout. Big inspiration, then sudden disinterest.
It's all fine until it starts feeling like an obligation.

Today, I pushed myself to sit in the studio. Just 15 minutes. It took hours to even get myself through the door. I didn’t touch any clay or pick up tools. Just sat with some of my pieces. Staring at them got me thinking about scale. Why am I so drawn to making things smaller? With my love and interest in dirt I know I like to focus on the overlooked, the discarded, questioning value.  Maybe it’s a quiet rebellion against the pull to create big, wow factor work? Maybe I'm afraid to make larger work? I do know though, I enjoy holding work, cradling work almost in my hands.

I’ve had this exhibition idea in my head: Elevation. It’s a proposal I spent days drafting—only to let it sit forgotten, (pah, I could write an encyclopedic sized book of those ideas) and like so many ideas that start off intensely it just faded. Elevation is/was about shifting focus from the large and spectacular to the small, the humble, the imperfect. In a world where big, glossy and new is everything, I guess I’m drawn to the opposite. I want to create a space that celebrates the quiet. A place for subtlety, peaceful energy, ritual and reverence. I want to pause and reconsider what we value—and why. 

Winter feels like the right time for this kind of thinking. Our culture’s need for grandeur and more stuff just feels exhausting sometimes, as Xmas approaches it's even more apparent. Elevation is my way of slowing down and, hopefully, inviting others to do the same. A way to counter the “more, more, more” energy with a little pause and stillness.

​So, I got back in the studio, albeit for just under 15 minutes.  Not making anything yet. Just sitting with the quiet energy of some of what I’ve created both at Tremenheere and in my studio this summer.  I'm trying to remind myself and others, it's okay if motivation ebbs and flows. I’ll sit with it for a while longer.

I had to force myself to write this, but I’m glad I did. Mostly, I do this for me. I recently had a conversation about my mixed feelings toward social media—it’s useful, even inspiring at times, but the sense of obligation to post (from nearly every arts advisory/consultant etc out there)  is what really puts me off. They suggested what if “sharing” could be just for myself? Like keeping a journal of what I make, what I enjoy, and why it matters to me—a way to honour the work privately, without the pressure of an audience and remind myself why I make. It sounded simple and there’s something valuable in putting these reflections somewhere, even if no one else reads them. So, this is a kind of compromise. Not pouring everything onto social media but sharing it here on the blog. It’s here for anyone who feels like reading and honestly, for me, to look back on too.

​Would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on scale, pauses and general creative ebbs and flows.

The ideas of scale, significance and value has always played a part in many things I make, especially given how society and the art world often puts the monumental/grandiose on a pedestal.

​Inspired by ancient standing stones, (something that scale plays a huge part in what is deemed the most important) the piece I’m working on, ‘Monument’  considers scale and I’m  playing with ideas of how we place meaning to objects. I’d like it to be a piece that’s both familiar and ambiguous, considering what really makes something important or of value.

The past few weeks in the studio have been frustrating to say the least, moments of doubt, frustration, and, occasionally, glimmers of clarity. Monument has pushed me into that all too familiar cycle of self doubt and ‘what’s the point’ conversation in my head. It been like an endless process of balancing, adjusting, and reconsidering every detail, all in the attempt of communicating an idea that is pretty simple. And yet, I’m still not quite there. 

What I’m trying to learn is balance is key—both literally and conceptually. The ceramic form on top, can be positioned in countless ways. Each shift in placement feels monumental (pun intended) and changes the entire feel of the work. This process has been ridiculously painstaking. I’ve spent hours upon hours just experimenting with the way the piece balances itself. Currently the ceramic piece is balanced on a plinth rather than fixed or secured as I want there to be a feeling of transience, as if the whole structure could shift or collapse at any moment - probably not ideal for an exhibition?

I’ve played with different plinths, as well as height, the texture, the finish. Should it be sanded? Painted? Ink or paint? Pencil? Left raw? The relationship between the plinth and the ceramic is crucial. I’ve gone through multiple variations, trying different finishes, sanding, painting, stripping it back, only to start over again. 

I’ve been rearranging the piece in the studio, looking at it from every angle, from a distance and up close. How does it feel from a lower viewpoint? What happens when you elevate it more? Does it feel too isolated or too approachable? Nothing feels quite right yet.

What makes this process so challenging is that, in the end, the final piece will be simple. And with simplicity, there’s always the risk of it being misunderstood. I can already anticipate that dreaded “I could have done that.”  Something I know all artists take a deep breath when hearing.

​The final result may seem simple. But the truth is, the simplicity comes from layers upon layers of thought, adjustments, and refinements, which in itself is maddening. I know I'm not alone in this process.

At this stage, Monument is nearly there. I’m close to resolving it, I hope.  In this frustration I have to remind myself (thank you instagram and the fellow artists who commented) that the very act of balancing/assembling/figuring it all out is all part of the ritual that is usually part of my work.
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I hope for Monument to be quietly unassuming, ambiguous, both monumental and precarious, solid yet vulnerable, maybe I’m asking too much or overthinking but isn’t that what we all do (please say yes!)

More arranging objects on a shelf, this time creating what resembles an altar piece or a small temple shape using recycled wood. The piece features a hole on top where I’ve placed a root. Alongside it, I’ve positioned a tiny ceramic bowl I’ve made, also with a hole, which holds a dried flower.

Roots have always held a special place in my work. My degree show (2000) featured several bound and wrapped roots reminiscent of some kind of creature. These roots often come from significant trees or plants, each carrying its own story in folklore and meaning. Although I can’t remember the specific origin of this particular root (my collection has grown too large to keep track of without labels!), I know it was chosen with the intention of elevating its presence.

Unusually for me, there is a hint of colour on the reclaimed wood—orange and green. I’ve been unexpectedly drawn to orange lately, which is unusual for me. This vibrant color is something I’m exploring more deeply and researching during moments outside the studio.

​I’m playing with creating small spaces that invite contemplation and reflection, perhaps even a sense of reverence. New work is emerging in the studio, challenging conventional ideas of sacredness and value. I’m exploring how we perceive and assign meaning to objects, and this process of arranging and re-arranging helps me uncover new insights and connections.