HandMade Ceramics

About Denise

Hello! I’m Denise

Handmade Ceramic Artist

Welcome to my website. I am a ceramics maker, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. I excelled in art at school but it was a combination of life turns and the need for employment with a guaranteed monthly cheque, when I decided to gain employment in the hospitality sector. I became increasingly unfulfilled with the lack of creativity, so I decided to return to full-time further education, and this lead me back to higher education and my journey in Art.

I was introduced to ceramics while I was on a community Arts course, and further studied a 3-dimensional design course in pottery and ceramics and after this, I gained a place on the Arts and Design course a Edinburgh College of Art.

My ceramics have evolved from studio work and more recently in my career as a support worker.

I have gained a good understanding of the individuals learning experiences and have a broad grounding in various Ceramics methods and processes, the successes and the pitfalls!

When I am not at work in my support role, I can spend many hours perfecting designs and thinking up more to produce. I sell individually online at my online store and smaller pieces at the Mulberrybush shop part of Garvald organisation.

During my early learning, I focused on throwing on the wheel, itself an act of centring physically and psychologically and I find hand-building processes to be akin to mindfulness. The artistic process of creating ceramic sculptures provides me with opportunities for spiritual growth and personal well-being.

I have seen the positive impacts of creating with clay and I have a deep commitment to passing on skills to others so that others may feel the sheer enjoyment and pleasure creating stories in clay.

My Process

Watch my process

Below is a video slider showcasing the various stages that I go through when creating my sculptures.

My sculptures are all hand-built, I try to let the clay ‘speak’ to me and evolve as I am setting my intentions, sometimes it is a challenge but fortunately clay is very forgiving and can be manipulated, chopped and changed in its unfired state. Clay is so easy to make an impression on and the possibilities to cut up / even break / reconsitute, and reassenble is provides endless possibilities. Things that can go awry at different stages of the process, but also there are many delightful surprises and I enjoy the challenge of ceramic creation enormously.

The sculptures are bisque fired for around 10 hours and 7 hours glaze firing. I use all types of clays and generally use midfire clays more often which are fired around 1180 degrees centigrade for interiors or stoneware fired 1300 degrees centigrade for outdoor use (frostproof).

I work with traditional methods and all of my ceramics are one-off hand-built (no moulds involved). I use combined methods of slab building, pinching, coiling and modelling; often experimenting with surface texture by layering glazes and multi fire to deepen colour and texture.

I use combined methods of slab building, pinching, coiling and modelling.

I draw, collage, and use mixed media. My Ideas progress from design sketches and I explore these themes and develop these into clay maquettes and sometimes later translated into a larger forms.
Clay is so easy to make an impression on and the possibility to cut up / even break and reassemble, providing endless possibilities.

I will be setting up some pilot workshops in community venues, which will be bookable on this website. I look forward to being able to share the excitement and fulfilling experience of creating ceramics.