Biography

I studied 3-Dimensional Design (ceramics) at Loughborough College of Art & Design. Following a year as Artist-in-Residence at a school I produced my ceramics as part of the Nottingham City Artists group exhibiting regularly and selling through a number of London outlets including Liberty's.

I have worked as an Art Teacher in secondary education and also in the theatre on costumes. During the time I  worked at the Sydney Opera House I also studied 'real' shoe making at North Sydney TAFE.

I now work from my studio at home in the Cotswolds.

How the shoes are made

Each of my shoes is designed & made individually & takes about 10 hours of hands-on work to create.  I start by drawing both on paper & directly onto the plaster last form that I use to make the shoes.  Clay is rolled out & draped around the last & the pieces are cut to the desired pattern.  While the clay is soft hand-carved stamps are used to impress patterns onto the surface.  When the clay has dried a little & has reached what is called, appropriately, the leather-hard stage the pieces of the shoe are firm enough to keep their shape ready to be joined.  Further decoration is added in the form of braids & beads.  Each bead has been rolled individually by hand.  Bows & rosettes are created from sheets of clay that are thin enough to be able to manipulate them like fabric.  The finished shoe is allowed to dry slowly & then fired to 1150˚C.  The soles are given definition by colouring with matte under-glaze paints & fired again before the glazes are applied to the uppers.  The shoes are fired to 1060˚C.  Finally the lustres are applied.  Lustres are powdered gold or platinum dissolved in a liquid that can then be painted on to the gloss surface of the glaze.  The shoes are fired again to 800˚C.  This is hot enough to just melt the surface of the glaze so the gold or platinum is left as a thin film.

All shoes are made in pairs, a right & a left.  They can be purchased individually or as a pair.