Christiane Hayles
Everything I make is hand built and fired to stoneware temperatures. The only variation between my pots and sculptures is the clay I use. My crows and bugs are made from Flax-clay with different Oxides. On the bugs I "go to town" so to speak in that I experiment and use many different colours in an attempt to make them more interesting and eye-catching.
The legs are made from a special spring wire. For the Scarab dish I used smooth buff stoneware clay. It is glazed with a Shino glaze on the outside and Tenmoku on the inside. The individual beads also have Shino glaze on the rim. The scarab on this dish has oxides and a green Starglaze on top.
The metal wire is fine silver. The ideas for my dish designs are derived from my love of bugs, insects and reptiles. Their beautiful forms never fail to inspire me. All of earth's natural life fascinates me but crows never fail to make me smile because of their comical and cheeky ways. In my sculptures I try to display what I see in these very funny birds.
