"Exploring Love" is a wall installation of heart-shaped stoneware bowls. Each bowl is hand-built, different in shape, glaze, texture, color and decorative details, and fired to 1220 degrees Celsius in an oxidation atmosphere. They can serve as domestic fruit bowls or decorative wall hangings. Some are dark, some bright, some simple, some complicated, just like our emotions.

“Working with these bowls is like exploring love. I never knew how each one would turn out. Every bowl was different; different clay, different glaze, different temperature, different degrees of care and attention. Sometimes the clay was too much, too little, too thin, too thick, too stubborn, too soft. Sometimes I was too quick, or too ponderous. So many times I failed, so often I wanted to give up; as with love. Even when you are quite certain that it is right you can still be wrong. Often I expected one thing, but got another - a pleasant surprise.         “If I am careless with the bowls I can easily break them, drop them or create defects.If I am too careful I don't get any fun out of them. They pull me down, they lift me up and they keep me going.

“I love exploring new resources and materials. There is no need to always use something modern. I love experimenting with things around me, something that's already there but never tried before, such as wood ash from my mother's stove; it gave me golden brown glaze. So now my Mum is collecting wood ash for me from her charcoal stove. Imagine Mum collecting ash day in day out for months before posting it to me. I am not only concerned about the outcome - equally the process needs to be warm and full of love.

“It is not easy to give love a definite description. I would never claim to have got it right. Even if you get it right today, love may change tomorrow. What I do know is you have to keep exploring. If you don't try you'll never know.”