Meet the Maker

I grew up in a Chinese village in the 1980s. Making is what my mum always did. Like all the other women in the village, she learnt how to turn the humblest materials into something useful. At the time, making for my mum was both a skill and a necessity.

Photo: My village home in China (2017)

Decades later I migrated to UK and built a professional career for a number of years, yet somehow I always intuitively wanted to create with my hands and lead a more creative life.  So around 2013 I joined the FDAD (Foundation Diploma in Art and Design) course run by West Dean College, through which I met Veronique Maria, who later became my creative mentor. 

In 2018 I took a short career break and studied contemporary art through a summer school run by Chelsea College of Art.  I felt at the time I was on cross roads and I had to make a decision in order to move forward.   Art up to that point felt like more of an escape, other than a part of my more being.  

After the summer school I took on a series of creative coaching sessions with Veronique.  Now looking back I felt I needed a push in order to make some important life decisions.  The main outcome from the coaching is that I realised that I wanted, more than anything else in the world, to lead a life in the arts. 

In January 2019 I made the decision to move to London, in order to study ceramics and art whilst working in London.  Making with clay came natural to me.  Clay as a material feels both humble and familiar; it brought me back the memory of being the carefree child in the village, with imagination running wild. 

Currently I am based in Portsmouth and about to put on a show with Citylit, as part of our one-year long course Contemporary Practice: Personal Project ( CPPP).  As a ceramic maker, I wanted to locate myself in the realm of contemporary art practice and search for the meaning of making.  After all I didn’t feel the world needed another pot made by me.

Through research, inquiries, studio practices as well as dialogues with Citylit art tutors, fellow artists and makers during the past year, I feel now I am surer in terms of my path forward: I would like to use ceramics as an agency in re-connecting myself with China, and as a way of living and experiencing life as an overseas Chinese artist. 

I feel for a long time I disconnected myself from my past and my cultural identity given by birth, with many reasons that I only understood much later.  Studying ceramics brought me home.  Making ceramics, over the time, has become my core being, and my window of experiencing the world and life around me. 

I am grateful for the journey thus far and very much look forward to the journey ahead. 

Website:  qianceramics.com

Instagram: @carolinewadhams ( a.k.a. Liu Qian)