White Willow Art

Website:

'@whitewillowart

Leaf dish

Leafy Homeware Range

A splash of colour

Biography

I can often be caught rummaging in hedgerows, picking through plants on my allotment or in the garden. I love to bring out the personality of a plant, and enjoy the process of contrasting leaves and working out their placement for a piece. Making something pretty from mud - the ultimate messy natural substance that most of us resent or ignore - is deeply satisfying.
So I hope my ceramic leaf range of dishes, homewares, and handmade flowers help people enjoy the outside whilst inside; to remind them of peaceful hazy summer days, sitting in daisy-strewn meadows, or wandering through woodland, or enjoying their gardens; to reconnect to the natural world and its rhythms, in order to escape the frenetic pace of modern life.

inspiration

Seeking solace from country walks, meandering through the dappled light of woodlands, or working the soil and talking to the worms whilst tending my allotment slows my mind, moves my body, and reconnects me to my natural state of being. It means I crave nature every day, and so it was completely organic (pun intended!) for me to turn to nature for inspiration for my artwork.

medium

I use a Cornwall-sourced earthenware clay, off-white in colour, which perfectly highlights the natural and subtle hues of nature's green tones. Pressing real leaves and flowers into the clay, using formers to create shape, and then firing to 1120°C, fixes the imprints, allowing me to use a range of underglaze colours to capture the
personality of each leaf or flower, bringing each piece to life, and making each one unique.
The rest of my range is slab-built from my own designs and templates; my acorns are made using my own molds; whilst the flowers are made using simple cutters their uniqueness comes from the way I manipulate the clay and colour them.

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