Helen McCormick is a Welsh ceramicist and art teacher based in Cullompton, Devon. These hand-coiled ceramic vessels are inspired by the ever-changing relationship between land and sea along the North Wales coastline. Responding to the colours, rhythms and movement of the sea, the work explores the shifting boundary where water meets sand, and the subtle traces left behind by the ebb and flow of the tide.

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Hand-built using the slow, meditative process of coiling and St Thomas stoneware clay, each vessel incorporates small inclusions of sand collected from Tywyn, Llanaber, Benar, Llandanwg and Harlech beaches. Embedded within the clay body, these materials physically connect the work to the landscapes that have informed it, carrying fragments of these familiar shorelines into each vessel.

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Coloured slips are applied during the making process, while my own barium-based matt and crater glazes, coloured with copper oxide, copper carbonate and tin oxide, create layers of texture, depth and tonal variation. Recycled copper is also introduced into the glaze, producing subtle shifts in colour and surface, echoing the fluidity and unpredictability of the sea.

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Together, the three vessels form a response to the meeting of land, water and time. They exist somewhere between sculptural object and material record, holding traces of a specific landscape while reflecting on impermanence, memory, legacy and the enduring relationship between people and the North Wales coast.

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