Ceramics
Shirley Vauvelle
Shirley has always made things since childhood, sewing dolls clothes or making things from found natural forms such as sea shells. She has been a designer, educator, gallery owner and now maker/artist. She feels painting and ceramic making overlap with the ceramic surfaces treated as a canvas. Her practise has tended to produce playful component pieces combined with found materials, assemblages inspired by creatures, birds and plants. It is now developing into larger scale semi abstract hand built sculptural ceramic forms .
Shirley’s art education background and initial design career was in textile/surface decoration, studying at Chester college for a foundation course and Leicester Polytechnic for a BA Hons, graduating in 1987.
Self taught in ceramics, she works from a light filled studio in her home, which has been featured in publications and is situated near the east coast english seaside town of Filey. An important part of her surroundings is her garden which is continuously being developed and evolving, full of many interesting plants selected for form, texture or colour, many of which are used within her work.