Geraldine Hughes

From childhood my interests have been reading, music and the natural world. If my nose was not stuck in a book, I was out pressing flowers, poking under rocks in streams and rock pools or carrying home old bones.

I have a degree in Biology and Geography from Keele University. Keele is situated in the Potteries and it was at one of the Art Colleges there that I began Potting on free afternoons.

Not surprisingly the natural world provides the inspiration for my pots. I love the flow of landscape, quartz veins through rocks, the shape of animals and plants and the sea and the sky. The ideas are expressed in a minimalist and abstract form, for example my "Coast" pots represent the junction of sea and sky. My pots are stoneware, wheel thrown and electrically fired.

I am fascinated by space and being a Star Trek fan regret that we have not made progress to meet the Klingons. Interest in space shows in my Milky Way pots. Keele had an Observatory, I remember one night spent watching Saturn wheeling through the sky. I have a Private Pilots Licence and fly a small Cessna. I often fly over Derbyshire with field patterns and textures and the shape of rivers flowing under me, to my surprise this view of landscape has failed to filter through into my pots. I think that the concentration required flying the aircraft, monitoring the engine, not getting lost and dodging military jets blocks out artistic thoughts!

I am a member of the Northern Potters Association.