This year is all about ceramics and the final path - a potter.  I applied and was accepted on the first "Leach Year" course run by Leach Pottery, St Ives, Cornwall—a year-long course to develop my pottery skills in throwing, glazing, firing and sustainability.  It runs from January to December, and the first three modules dovetail with the final semester of this BA.  Combining the course and creating exhibition work seemed a logical approach to achieving success in both.  

Cyclical was a challenge I set myself. I calculated my menstrual age and the number of cycles I had had in my lifetime, and then set about making 691 before the Degree Show. During the project, I reevaluated the type of vessels I was producing. 177 represented my childhood—these were the most time-consuming and intricate pieces. 463 represented my life as a woman and mother, and 51 since Chemotherapy forced my body into early menopause.  The vessels touch and impact each other as each cycle is different, yet connected to the previous and future ones. Earlier trials of displays included keeping some of them in the trays alongside a half-made Fibonacci Spiral pattern,  an attempt to stack them and band them into a shell shape. This was abandoned as the cylindrical vessels were tapered and not sufficiently straight-sided to hold their position in the stack. The variation prior to settling on this format was the reverse having the largest vessels in the centre and working to the smaller ones on the outer edge, to give it a dome appearance yet this did not track with the idea of starting small in the centre and gaining height and weight as the spiral grows.

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In the beginning, each vessel took 20 minutes to throw; by the time I reached the 500th, the time had improved to 8 minutes. Clay weights ranged from 50g to 500g, and heights ranged from 2.5 cm to 12cm.  

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