Creating comedy in clay
- Alice is a printmaker and ceramicist
- She balances form, function and decoration
- She creates unique sculptures, personal to her clients
Alice Mara captures the highs and lows of everyday life in her three-dimensional ceramic collages. Her work involves skilled slab working to build the structure of the piece, this is then combined with collected imagery, often very personal to her clients. If you look closely you might notice hidden symbols in the work which represent the artist’s state of mind or the state of the world, such as a dustbin liner next to a swimming pool symbolising how rubbish life can be yet at the same time, there is joy to be found. Perhaps the playful and humorous use of imagery comes from her training as a stand-up comedian. Her work has won many awards and she has exhibited at the New York Print Fair.
Interview
- Do you remember the moment when you first thought of picking up your craft?
- Yes at eight years old, at the YMCA central London. They had activities for kids and you could do anything from rock climbing to photography – I found the pottery room. I went to pottery for an hour, then off for a swim to wash the clay off.
- Where do you get your imagery?
- I traipse the streets of Worthing or London, or wherever I happen to be. I take photos of everything from pound shops to regency buildings. I also take pictures of crowds of people, shopping trolleys, windows or puffa jackets. I’m interested in documenting our current time.
- What drives you to make your pieces?
- I like to make a fantasy from pieces of reality. To imagine a building: what goes on, in and around it. My favourite part of the process is when I have the blank, fired building in front of me, then I start to put the imagery onto it. It really comes to life.
- Can you tell us a memorable moment in your professional life?
- When my mum died, I made an urn for the ashes. It had a house going around it and us in the windows waving good bye. It sounds cheesy, but at that time, it was the best thing that I’d ever made. The people working at the crematorium had never seen anything like it!
Alice Mara is an expert artisan: she began her career in 1998
