Sarah Jenkins has been making ceramics for more than 30 years and is based in a north Essex village where her direct connection to the landscape is very important to her work.
I feel I am on a search, my quarry is elusive, intuition is more helpful in this territory than analysis.
A key influence is the land around where I live, where I was born, to which I feel attached. However, although ever-present, sometimes this aspect can be more subliminal or oblique. Ceramics is my dominant medium. I do paint sometimes, and I have recently completed the first of a series of bronzes.
Her journey has been unconventional, and includes: leaving her Fine Art degree, a long period working as a plasterer in the building trade, adult-education classes at Morley College, clay work with people with mental health problems, a lot of experimentation, including building more than one studio and raku kilns, and a sabbatical in a Cape Town ceramic studio.
Her ceramic work is always hand built and fired several times. She’s currently using simple slips and oxides with scant use of glaze.