Within my practice, I am driven to learn from and preserve traditional craft skills, using them to create contemporary functional and sculptural work. I often reflect on the past, searching for fragments of pots and glass in old middens, sea walls, and riverbeds—quiet traces of domestic life in Galloway before us. I seek to honour this history through my work and to express the shared hopes and values that move through each generation. For me, this is where the importance of functional pottery lies: in objects made with care, used daily, and shaped over time through ritual and use. I also explore the materials that the landscapes in Galloway offers for me as a potter. I use wood ash from farms and dig clay from rivers and hillsides. With these I make my own wood ash glazes. These glazes enhance the red clay I use to throw my pots, and flow in the firing in a way that many other glazes don’t. This movement imparts life to the surface of the work, giving texture and depth.