Pentimento Ceramics and Print

Jaki Darlington.

I am fascinated by the fact that clay can be tired, stressed, and that it has a memory. I like that idea, it reminds us that clay is organic, once lived. Ceramic forms can also have a body, a neck, a collar and shoulders and vessels often have a lip, mouth, legs and feet.  I am intrigued by the relationship that ceramic objects share with the human form and I like to explore that connection in my work.  Rather than producing a realistic representation of animals, my work seeks to capture the playfulness of animals, which often results in them inheriting human quirks and mannerisms.

Caroline Hewitt.

In the Autumn of 1993, my dad found an abandoned bird's nest in his garden. As a student, I produced a series of drawings of this beautiful and delicate object, which became the basis of my final year's work and which marked the beginning of what would become a longstanding obsession with British birds. Originally trained in Printed Textile Design at Heriot-Watt University, drawing and the application of image, pattern or motif to a surface has always been fundamental to my work. Twenty years on, I  work almost exclusively by drawing and through ceramics, with clay fulfilling the same role as paper or fabric.   

Having both worked in Further and Higher Education for twenty years, Caroline and Jaki currently live and work as full-time artists in Glossop, Derbyshire with their three cats Archie, Peter, Lillemiss and the interloper Louie.