Team: Emerging Ceramic Artist Residency at Arc Centre

Hello! I’m Rachel, a volunteer with Arc and general craftperson working mostly in felt and clay, but not at the same time! I consider myself to be incredibly lucky to be involved with Arc. I personally benefitted massively from an Arts for Recovery programme when I battled with postnatal depression over 6 years ago.

In January 2018 I was thrilled to be offered the opportunity to have a mini-residency at the Ceramics Studios at Arc. My residency runs until the end of April, and during this time I will be experimenting with different ceramic techniques to create my own body of work, whilst also developing ideas for potential future workshops.

I have a background in ceramics having fallen in love with the medium at Art College nearly 20 years ago which led to a degree in Contemporary Crafts, specialising in ceramics, specifically paper clay. The residency has given me the chance to rediscover and relearn whilst also thinking about how the processes and techniques could be used by visitors and participants. Clay can be a wonderfully therapeutic material to work with, so it would be wonderful to encourage more people to use the Arc Ceramics Studio.

Watch this space for a write-up about our half-term public workshops, Animal Antics!

by Rachel Harlow, Arc Ceramic Artist in Residence