About | helen-marton-ceramic

My practice reinterprets and extends an object's biography. In archaeology, the biography of an object or material refers to the journey it undergoes and the many interactions it experiences over time. My focus is upon the abstraction of forms and themes connected to ancient domestic and ritual objects. I create extension of the object biography through reinterpretation.

I worked as an educator for more than 20 years, facilitating creative learning as a senior lecturer at Falmouth University and then as Course Leader on the BA (Hons) Contemporary Design Crafts & Jewellery Design degree courses at Hereford College of Arts.

I have works in private and public collections, at the Hungarian Museum of Contemporary Ceramics, The National Porcelain Museum and Art Academy in Latvia, Yorkshire Craft Centre and various museums and galleries.

Over the years I have run a many workshops for children and adults, in addition to inset training days for teachers. Encouraging interaction with local schools, educators and students for the long-term benefit of crafts within education, I developed workshops for local teachers in order to reintroduce lost skills in clay working and to reanimate redundant ceramics facilities.

I have travelled throughout Indonesia and Asia, Europe and Eastern Europe examining live crafts, in particular traditional weaving and pottery production. Visiting museum collections and examining tools, weapons and Bronze Age artefacts from many cultures has further fuelled my fascination for this ‘cross fertilisation’ between types of materials and the root of any shared influence for both design and decoration.

My private passion is scuba diving. I love to be in the blue silence supported and surrounded by ocean. As an advanced diver qualified to reach depths of 30+metres, I have experienced some unforgettably euphoric moments in the silent company of some of the great pelagic inhabitants, like shark and Manta and the Pigmy Seahorse, barely bigger than a grain of rice.