I use animals as a way in.

Hares, foxes, badgers — familiar British creatures — sit alongside smaller, often overlooked ones: mice, rats, snails, slugs. Not as wildlife studies or symbols, but as carriers. They hold mood, character, awkwardness, gentleness, and the things that are hard to say directly.

I’m not especially interested in animals as animals. I’m interested in what passes through them. A pause. A thought. A sense of being slightly out of step. The animal just makes it easier to look.

There’s no hierarchy in them. The well-known and the overlooked are held in the same way — each given space, each allowed to exist whether noticed or not. Many sit slightly at the periphery, with a quiet awkwardness, neither narrative nor abstract.

Some pieces are playful, some are quieter. Most sit somewhere in between. They’re made slowly, by hand, and left a little open — so they can meet the person who finds them halfway.

I’ve always needed to make things in three dimensions. From my teens onwards, drawing was never enough; ideas wanted weight. Even during years spent working digitally, that pull didn’t go away — it just waited.

Clay brought me back to myself. Not dramatically, not spiritually — just practically. It suited the way my mind works. Things stop being theoretical when you can hold them.

I don’t make grand statements. I make small, deliberate objects that carry feeling without explanation. If they make someone smile, pause, or feel quietly accompanied, that’s enough.