While working as an art teacher Neil began to devise hand building projects for his students. It was witnessing their joyful, uninhibited approach to clay that inspired him to start making his own work. After further studies in ceramics and education he returned to teaching as a ceramics specialist.
During 22 years of teaching and making he was given the opportunity to travel across USA to explore American ceramics. He also received a British Council Award to teach in America. Ironically these experiences were to be so positive that they led to Neil leaving the profession to make his own work full time. He settled in Bath in 1992 and was soon joined in his studio by Sally MacDonell.
His ideas focus on the strange beauty found in the decaying architecture of industrial wastelands. He has built up a large collection of clay and plaster moulds that he has made from the surfaces of found fragments of discarded waste. It is these textures, patterns, shapes and colours that form the thread that runs throughout his entire range of unique hand built forms.
His work can be found in public and private collections in UK, Europe and America.