Location

Holwell Studio is a part of a Dartmoor farm, we are very fortunate to be able to live and work in such a wonderful place. I was born on the moor, and went to school locally, although work took me away for many years this is where my roots are. My ceramics are made with clays and minerals mostly sourced from Dartmoor; the body is often ball clay kindly donated by Imreys, Heathfield, Bovey Tracey, or other clays found locally, sometimes mixed with commercially produced clays. Using local clays and minerals is carefully done, landowner permission is essential, and care not to disturb flora or fauna.

The Bovey ball clay is a product of the eroding granite, created over millenia by a process of attrition and sedimentation. In and on this clay body are materials from the batholith; feldspar, ash, haematite, manganese, traces of copper and tin, and sometimes fragments indicating it’s geological age, fossiled wood in the form of lignite, a remnant of times when the clay deposits were beneath a tropical sea.

Dartmoor is inspirational, the climate can be harsh, cold and often wet, but beautiful, clear and pared back, revealing it’s bones and history.