Moira is based in a small village on the edge of the Blackwater Estuary Coast. After a career in Marketing Communications, Moira studied 3D art specialising in ceramics at Colchester Adult College gaining a City and Guilds Diploma.
Moira’s vessels are contemplative and tactile, and strongly influenced by sense of place – the soft Essex saltings landscape, the quality of East Coast light, and the fleeting and ever-changing nature of life between the tidelines.
Using hand-building techniques, Moira controls the shape throughout the process as her work grows steadily with each flattened coil. Finding a balance in the form between manmade and organic is always foremost in her mind.
The technique of smoke firing has been central to her work for over twenty years. During this time she has refined this low firing process, developing her own masking methods to create detail, depth and movement in the surface. Soft coloured slips are applied to the surface, which is then carefully burnished with a stone. The layers of the colours, the masking and the depth of the sawdust firings, from light to dark, allows her to set the tone of each piece.
Every piece represents a balance between the random, spontaneous element of the smoke firing and her intended design.
