Ann Marie Coughlan Allen

I am inspired by Literature and Art, specially the Pre Raphaelites, John Waterhouse, Keats, Shakespeare and Tennyson. But they are not what I try to emulate - my creations come from inside my head and heart. My small ceramic bust starts off as one woman and morphs into another. I love that they birth themselves in that way. I also make pots to resemble something that has been buried for years.

Q&A

Artist Statement

I am inspired by Literature and Art, specially the Pre Raphaelites, John Waterhouse, Keats, Shakespeare and Tennyson. But they are not what I try to emulate – my creations come from inside my head and heart. My small ceramic busts start off as one woman and morph into another. I love that they birth themselves in that way. I also make pots to resemble something that has been buried for years.

What craft do you work with?

Ceramics , hand building. As an English teacher, I have worked at evening classes since 1995 on and off, then joined a pottery in Cardiff. During Covid, I worked at home. After moving back to the North I joined Belfast Met evening classes to keep making. I love hand building as it feels like I am a creator for the length of time my hands are in the clay.

What inspires you to work with this craft?

I’m passionate about there being something there on a surface that has never been there before. That is miraculous: that a human being can produce an object out of their hand movements, one that can tell a story and inspire an emotion without the written or spoken word.

How do you start your creative process?

The process I seem to follow is one I don’t notice until I start to make. I seem to start by a yearning to look at my collection of Waterhouse paintings: they are everywhere in my home. I look at Nature more, and feel unsettled because Nature is perfect and self sufficient and separate from me. I start to read poetry, I remind myself of speeches from Shakespeare by revisiting his plays. I feel frustrated and ignorant. I feel envious and covetous of the natural world and of the great writers and poets and painters. I am unaware at this time that I’m yearning to make. I feel sad and unfulfilled and full of contradictory emotions. That leads me to pulling the clay out and coming alive again.

How would you best describe your workspace and what tools could you not do without?

I can’t do without my hands of course. My kitchen table looks out on our tiny Italian garden. That’s where I work. I couldn’t do without my tiny, rounded tool to make my women’s nostrils! Or my little prodder to make tiny, decorative squares… Or my AMCA stamp to say, ‘I did this!’

Are there new techniques you would like to try?

Bigger women. A challenge to expand.

What have you learnt or the best advice you have?

‘Just get the clay out’ is the best advice I’ve had. You’ll make a mess but you’ll be so happy with the mess and the object that’s been born out of it. I dream of collaborating with maybe a dramatic production or an Art gallery. My professional dream is to exhibit. At the moment I’m selling my work in a small gift shop in my home town but I’d love to be selling more widely.