Ailsa Nicholson

Whitby, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Title: Dichroic Vase (wheel thrown)

Year of Creation: 2012

Glaze: Clear crackle glaze with cobalt inlay and fused dichroic glass

Clay Body: Porcelain and stoneware mix

Dimensions: Height 11.02 inches

Artist's Statement: Ailsa graduated from the University of Wales, Cardiff in 1999 with a first class honours degree in Ceramics. Her work experiments with a wide variety of decorative wheel thrown pieces and handbuilt sculptures which concentrate on form rather than function and explore both negative and positive space and the movement suggested within those spaces. Clay is never weighed and work is always cut freehand to ensure each piece's individuality.

Recent work explores the throwing and carving of clay and celebrating the colour of the clay itself, finishing with a clear glaze and cobalt inlay or smoke firing with salts and oxides. The use of dichroic glass fused to the raw ceramic gives the pieces an individual and jewel like quality.

Much of Ailsa's work is experimental as she thrives on the technical challenges involved in the process of ceramics. The thought and technical process is as inspiring as the forms themselves, and her work is constantly moving and changing as she pushes the boundaries and the possibilities of clay.