Clare Stephens vessels create dialogue eluding to human values of empathy, acceptance and unity, facilitating conversations and communication about these important values. Interaction with others, materials and objects are mirrored in her pieces and their curation.

Presence or ‘being-with’ created between objects or us, enables meaningful interaction, with potential for our well-being and that of others. Openness, recognizing everyone’s humanity, facilitates global values of acceptance, dialogue, collaboration, timeless and precious values.

Clare connects with and appreciates clays materiality, tacit knowledge from countless generations of ceramicists, enhanced by her use of varied clays, making and firing techniques. Interacting with clay, mind, hands and body are in unison, responding to each other, paralleling aspects within her previous midwifery career, explored during MA Studies in 2023, providing wholeness to her work.

This piece was wood fired in Mid Wales Arts eco Girel 3e eco kiln, made with a white stoneware body. Glazes respond to the kilns reduction and ash atmosphere created with the fuel and collaborative firing.

Its title 'Balance' and form, discuss the beauty and wonder yet precarious nature of empathy and relationships, with each other, our environment and the world we all live in. As with relationships, this method of firing is relatively unpredictable with types of wood, size and position of pieces being fired as well as weather conditions, all contributing to the results.