THE PEBBLE ARTIST
Inspired by the natural world, Clare Mahoney makes clay ornaments decorated with fine detail
CLARE MAHONEY SITS at the work bench in her sunny West Country studio rolling out slabs of clay. These will be transformed into ceramic pebbles, each a miniature world in which Clare captures the beauty of nature. Through the window, she can see trees; their leaves gently rustle in the summer breeze, which carries with it the scent of mown grass. Inside the studio, all is calm and organised: on a table behind her, reclaimed printer drawers have been turned into knick-knack boxes displaying finished pieces alongside items she has collected while out walking, such as feathers, pine cones, acorns and shiny conkers. Pinned to a board above the table are photos, sketches and illustrations of plants, and a selection of autumn leaves, rich in hues of bronze, cocoa, amber and ochre.
Clare has worked with clay since her schooldays, when she did a GCSE in ceramics. She then went on to study art and design at The Glasgow School of Art, before finishing off with a master’s degree in ceramics at the University of Wales. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that she is passionate about working with clay. “It’s an amazing medium; very versatile and so impressionable; every finger mark shows,” she says. As well as the actual material, Clare is fascinated by the process of making ceramics, relishing the technical
challenges involved as well as the, sometimes unexpected, results. “I like the way you have to give the work up to the kiln and the way that it has changed when it comes out again,” she says. “It’s exciting when you don’t quite know what you are going to get.”
After completing her degree, Clare taught art for several years, first at secondary school level and then working at the City of Bristol College with special needs adults. She gave up her teaching to become a full-time ceramist in 2008. “It was a huge decision, but although I loved my job, I really wanted a maker’s life and the creative fulfilment that gives me, even with its highs and lows, and I have no regrets,” she says.
Artwork to hold
Throughout her teaching career, Clare had continued working with clay in her spare time, but her ceramic pebbles evolved almost accidentally. “I made the first one when I took part in an arts project involving old cigarette machines. You had to make an artwork that would fit into the space of a cigarette box; the pebble fitted perfectly, and I loved making it,” she explains. It was the start of a new creative direction, the pebble form appealing to her in both size and shape. “The form is really important, as it is based on the inside of your hand. I love the smallness of that: there is something about people’s hands and that shape that I find exciting.” Clare gradually began to make more and more pebbles and, in the process, worked out her own way to decorate their lovely shapes with delicate printed and cast motifs.
A born collector
Clare has loved pebbles since she was a child. “My grandparents had a caravan at Budleigh Salterton, where there were beautiful beaches for pebbles, and I always
collected them,” she says. “There is something about their organic shape, the way they are worn away over time and their feel when you sit them in your hand.” Today, Clare collects pebbles whenever she goes for a walk, be it in her local Somerset hills or on coastal walks in Devon and Cornwall. “I am an awful picker-upper and always have a little bag in my pocket,” she laughs.
As well as the pebbles, Clare collects plant material and natural objects, such as feathers and twigs, which she uses as a starting point for the surface decoration of her pebbles. She is attracted to the patterns these natural finds make. “It’s the way they encapsulate a really beautiful abstract shape,” she explains. “I line them all up when I get home, and all these little micro elements work together to make a different way of seeing a landscape.” Her finds reflect the seasons: snowdrops might take pride of place in winter, with summer grasses and foxgloves replacing the fragile spring flowers. “I love the changes of season, but spring and autumn are my favourite times of year, especially that complete change with the leaves in the autumn, and then the really intense green, drawing up
all that decomposition and nutrition, in spring; it’s just stunning.” Clare does the same walks quite often, enjoying the way they change with the seasons, and will sometimes make collections of pebbles decorated with finds from the same walk as a way of recording the life of a specific landscape over the year. Once she has gathered her materials, she is ready to start work.
Pebble-making process
The first stage is to make a mould from her chosen pebble. To do this, she surrounds exactly half the pebble in clay, supporting the clay with cardboard walls to create a box shape which will hold the liquid plaster in place. She then floods the box with pottery plaster to cover the exposed, upper half of the pebble.
Once it has hardened, she lifts the plaster and clay shape out of the box, turns it over, and removes the clay and pebble, leaving a plaster mould in the shape of the top half of the pebble. She then turns over the pebble and repeats the process, ending up with two moulds the exact shape of the top and bottom half of the pebble.
Once Clare has made her mould, she turns to the surface of her pebbles. Many are worked with printed patterns,
“No rocks impede thy dimpling course, That sweetly warbles o'er its bed, With white, round, polished pebbles spread”
Tobias Smollett, ‘Ode to Leven Water’
and Clare, who studied printmaking at art school, enjoys the way she has managed to combine printmaking with her ceramics. “I had to work quite hard to get the printmaking into the clay and to get these two quite technical media working together,” she says, adding that she wanted to combine them because she loves the way that printed surfaces can fold around forms. “I see the pebble shape as a perfect, pristine surface for printing on,” she explains.
The printed patterns are created by silk screening. Clare’s screens are made by a local printmaker, as she does not have the large-scale equipment needed for the process. She provides him with hand-drawn designs, which she has worked up from her collection of found plant material and other specimens. When she is ready to start printing, Clare rolls out her clay until it is paper thin. She uses Royale Porcelain clay, as it is easy to work with and has a smooth, clean colour. “I love its purity and the way it takes colour so well,” she explains. “It’s so white, it elevates the work to something more valuable and refined.” As there are no ceramic inks available on the market, she creates her own using ground-up underglaze clay and a screen-printing medium. The inks are carefully pressed through the fine screens to print the desired patterns on the clay.
Once the printed sheet of clay is dry, it is pressed into the pebble-shaped mould and then carefully removed so that it retains its shape. This is a tricky process, as the clay has to be wet enough to take the imprint of the mould, but not so wet that the print is smudged: if it is too dry, the clay will crack. The second half of the pebble is created in the same way, and the two halves are joined together. Clare lets them sit for two to three hours so they slowly adhere, always being careful not to damage the print or texture as she handles them. When they are ready, the pebbles are fired in her Rodin top-loader kiln. The kiln heats up to a temperature of 1265°C. The very high temperature gives the clay a vitreous finish, which means it can be left unglazed, as it is waterproof. Clare likes this matt finish; she feels glazes detract from the final artwork. “I like the form and the textures when there is just the clay and no glaze; it’s more potent somehow,” she says.
Motifs from nature
Clare also decorates some of her pebbles with low relief floral and plant motifs. The process required to make these is slightly different to those with printed patterns, as each
“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour”
William Blake, ‘Auguries of Innocence’
motif has to be cast separately before being applied to the clay. She picks the plant specimens while out on her regular walks, then presses them to flatten them on her return home. The flattened flower is then pressed and weighted down into the clay overnight so it can produce a well-defined imprint in the clay. Once the plant has been removed, the clay is fired. Clare uses a very smooth earthenware clay, which is fired to a lower temperature than porcelain to create a porous mould.
Small pieces of porcelain are pressed into the finished moulds to create flower-shaped pieces, or ‘sprigs’, of clay. Once Clare has made her floral sprig, she will apply it to a thin sheet of flat clay.
This is then lowered into the pebble-shaped mould: it is a difficult process, as Clare has to be careful not to destroy the relief pattern. “You can’t squash the clay into the mould; you just let gravity work, then push it gently with the back of your hand,” she explains. She then creates the pebble form and fires it in the same way as with the printed pebbles.
The finished pebbles are quietly beautiful: delicate, tactile objects that draw the viewer’s attention to often overlooked details in the natural world. “I like the little, and things such as feathers or leaves are, to me, a microcosm of nature: you can find real joy in those very small things,” says Clare. And it is this sense of gentle joy that her exquisite pebbles, which nestle so comfortably into the palm of the hand, give to those who view them.