I live at the very tip of the far west of Cornwall – just before the land falls away into the Celtic Sea.  It’s an amazing wildly elemental place that fosters creativity and opens the mind to an array of design interpretations.

I work with enamel resin powders which I sift onto copper panels and then fuse with heat to create framed abstract images, and enamel jewellery.   I started with the earrings, which I still love to do, but very quickly my instinct for producing work for the wall (I was a professional photographer and printer for years) led me to push my enamelling skills to create more ambitious larger scale pieces of art.

By hand-mixing enamel resin powders, I create unique colours, tones and hues (great concept but hard to replicate when I hit upon something good!) and I often incorporate raw metallic pigments to enhance the textural qualities of the work, or occasionally leave areas of exposed metal  (protected by transparent enamel) to act as a contrast to the more complex colours of the image.

My designs tend to fall into two categories – abstract sea and sky inspired images based on my surroundings and -  in complete contrast -  complex geometric elemental images that come from within, often influenced by the music I’m listening to at the time.   I always work with a background of music -  all kinds -  sometimes specifically chosen to reflect my mood but often  when I’m designing  I hit shuffle and go with wherever that takes me.

​Depending on the image, I either design and make hand cut guides to form the key shape elements, or I work freehand, sifting the enamel to craft the image and achieve the vision I have for it.  It’s a long process because each design is made up of layer upon layer (all individually applied and fired), and I use a range of transparent, opaque and translucent enamels to give the image greater depth and life.

Fusion of the enamel to the copper goes through three distinct stages once heat is applied. Using a hand-held butane torch rather than a kiln for firing enables me to control the fusion process at each of the three firing stages to give me the texture and finish I want.

I currently work with three sizes of panel – the largest being 300 mm sq -  but I’m really interested in seeing just how far I can push the process to go even larger.  Watch this space!