Cast into this Ghost Bird are broken pieces of clay pipe and china - small finds from ground and stream picked up whilst walking in West Dorset, and touched before me by the hands of the people who owned, used, broke and discarded them. As the kestrel views the landscape, she reminds us of the fragility of life, of our material treasures, and of the natural world. A ghost of our grandparents’ mantelpiece, a celebration of hands, and a memory of people unknown but like us, who loved and lost these everyday objects just as we all do and will.

I returned to Dorset in 2017 and began to walk in the landscape, following paths, ridges and holloways trodden by countless feet before me.  Here I’ve been getting to know the childhood parts of myself again, the parts that know this place in the way children do – closer to the ground, more in touch with the physicality of being alive, the insects and the bird song, the streams and the fields, the sky and the weather. With older eyes and a broader heart I’ve felt the pull to make objects that express my wonder about this place, and about how my childhood felt here, with the family I loved and admired, and with a strong sense of the passing of people, of time and of the enduring land.