Following government guidance, we have closed the Makerspace until further notice. We have also postponed all of our events up until the end of April.

I call myself an illustrator, which essentially means I make pictures to accompany or illuminate some text or a manuscript, tell a story or help show or sell an idea. I now work mainly for publishers illustrating children’s books, but I have also worked for design groups, advertisers, magazines and greeting card companies.

On the 1st of December, we are planning to join the Trinity Street Christmas Market by hosting our very own Christmas Ceramics Fair — and ideal opportunity for people to purchase locally made, hand crafted christmas gifts while we showcase all the talent we have as members fo the Makerspace and in Colchester. It is also a great opportunity to meet like minded makers.

When I first saw someone throw a pot on a wheel I thought, that is so amazingly beautiful, I want to learn to do that. When I watched the professional thrower followed by the hapless contestants on Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game in the sixties I was hooked: I was about 8. Luckily my school had good pottery equipment, including a wheel. After I’d learned to throw there, which culminated in my first teapot – which is, after all, the highest form of expres`sion in ceramics! – it was adult ed classes. This was then followed by a job as the pottery and art teacher at a USA summer camp in 1992 and I then did a Diploma in Ceramics from London Metropolitan University in 1995.

After my 3D Art and Design degree, which specialised in ceramics, I took clay workshops to 6th form students in schools and colleges as part of a Crafts Council initiative to get older children and their teachers into clay.