Welcome

This is the hardest part of doing my own website. My brain is not wired correctly for the written word, in fact large blocks of text can be quite intimidating for me. This is not an apology because my brain is set up for visuals and hence the whole artist thing.

I am 41 with a wife and 4 kids. We live in a lovely old vicarage in Ruswarp near Whitby and my studio is the old coach house. I am a full time artist and I still get a little tingle just thinking about that.

I was steered away from art at school and ended up becoming a chemical engineer. On qualifying I decided out of the blue to become a potter. I spent two weeks up in Caithness with a potter called Alan Baines and then set up in a shed at my parents place. The next two years were pretty hard but very empowering, however I eventually became disillusioned and went back into the real world.

Five years later, married with No.1 daughter on the way, I escaped again. We went to live up in Ayrshire on a delightful if rather wet farm. Three years after that we stumbled across the Grosmont Gallery near Whitby, which was up for sale. I set up my pottery at the back of the gallery and all went relatively well until 2001.

2001 was the foot and mouth year, which meant the closing of all the walks in the area. Most of our trade was from walkers and so our future was looking pretty bleak. The only things that were selling were my paintings, so I immersed myself. In that year although the overall gallery sales were down, my personal sales hit an all time high. My potter’s wheel has seen very little use since.

So that’s it in a nutshell. Please enjoy the website and return from time to time