Sheila Scholes

Jan studied Three-Dimensional Design at Manchester College of Art and Design, (BA hons)  followed by a post-graduate teaching certificate (PGCIA); she then taught in further and adult education in a variety of settings, the last of which was an education department in a local prison, where she taught for over 20 years. 

She returned to renew her studies in 2005, pursuing a University of Derby Diploma course in ceramics, followed by the MA course there in 2010.

Ocean travel and the natural world provide inspiration for Jan’s one-off porcelain and stoneware pieces. She works mainly with Valentine Clays’ porcelain paper clay and their Ashraf Hanna Professional Earthstone, preferring a white body so that the oxides and underglaze colours that she uses to emphasise structure and texture are not distorted by oxides in the clay.

Recent work has been doing just the opposite, using black clay with slips and glazes to explore the distorting effects of the clay’s character on the various decorating media, and producing a range of functional slab-constructed vessels.

The gallery in which her studio was based for many years closed following the lockdown, so her most recent work has reduced in scale and features found bark and twigs, either as a support or as a contrast to the fragility of the porcelain.