05/09/2026
This humble little bowl now lives in the permanent collection at the National Coal Mining Museum. It looks quite modest, but the colour and pattern come from a completely natural accretion of ochre over a period of 4 months. I’ve been working with over the last year or so, to incorporate iron ochre (a waste product from the mine water treatment plant at the museum) into my ceramics. More of that to come later but for now this bowl was selected by SPARK’s (Wakefield’s Cultural Education Partnership), Youth Arts Ambassadors (YAAs) as part of the Fixing Our Broken Planet programme from the
It was chosen largely due to the honest, natural way the colour and pattern formed while it soaked for months in a lagoon of mine water at the museum; recycling and reusing a pollutant and waste product into something useful and aesthetically pleasing – win win!
Huge thanks to the staff at the museum for their help and support.
