Catharsis through clay: My ceramics journey with Cardiff Met
I WAS born in Tredegar in 1972 and brought up in the South Wales valleys. It was a period which saw the end of the coal mines and, as a result, all major employment in the area. It was a very difficult start.
I found safe haven on a ceramic evening class taught by Billy Adams, although it involved two bus rides and often took two hours each way. It was here that I found a love of clay and experienced its cathartic values.
I joined the French Foreign Legion at 22 and, six years later, after serving as a parachutist and paramedic, I left the Second Foreign Parachute Regiments Camp Raffalli in Calvi, Corsica, a changed man. Several tours of duty had left an indelible mark etched on my soul.
Sixteen years later, a 10-week evening class called On the Potter’s Wheel, run by Duncan Ayscough, a tutor at Cardiff Met, returned me to clay.
My passion had returned and, despite having no previous qualifications, I was offered a place on the BA (Hons) Ceramics at Cardiff School of Art and Design on the strength of my practice. I accepted wholeheartedly and it was the beginning of what has become a truly life-changing experience.
The ongoing suffering of flashbacks and nightmares, caused by my military experience and breakdowns in my relationships, resulted in a visit to a GP and a referral to a specialist revealing the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder.
This mental illness was to hamper significant progress over the next few years of study, turning a three-year degree into a broken map of to-ing and fro-ing which lasted nine years.
But now, in 2019, I exhibited my final degree project at the Cardiff School of Art and Design summer show.
My exhibition installation, entitled Connectivity explores the psychological effects of PTSD on social groups. For me it has been a therapeutic journey of deconstruction and construction through ceramics and red thread.
It portrays the damage caused to relationships and friendships by the problems of mental health and in particular PTSD.
It has been a tough journey. I am so grateful to both the academic staff for not giving up on me and my passion for clay, and the technical demonstrators for their generous support and patience.
I highly recommend this course and all the staff to anyone wishing to learn ceramics, whether it be for beginners, school leavers or people who wish to further their understanding of process and materials.