Hull School of Art and Design   2008/2009

Adele Howitt

It was a fantastic experience to be part of the creative community at Hull School of Art and Design. The ceramics facility is extremely professional with offering advice and access to their firing and glaze-making facilities. Having access to such a facility enabled me to develop a range of matt earthenware glazes. This was invaluable, as I usually work within the public realm. Therefore, my glaze reportoire is specifically made for firing to high temperatures for longevity of work in exterior or densely populated interior public spaces. Having the majority of my work in public spaces, there's little time (or the appropriate facilities) to develop new applications. For almost three years, I have been working as Lead Artist for the HEY NHS Trust as part of the design team (HLM Architects / Shepherds Construction Ltd., Taylor Young) for the new cancer care hospital recently opened by Her Majesty the Queen and named, 'Queen's Centre for Oncology and Haematology at Castle Hill Hospital, East Yorkshire. Therefore the opportunity to create a new series of ceramics at Hull college was a real option to enrich my ceramics portfolio and develop new ideas. The work itself was for an exhibition at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, entitled 'Fabricate'. Whilst investigating the museum collection, I became struck by the idea and concept of the vessel as a structure / unit / cell that will hold information, so I started to explore tangents and researched the structure of plant cells / human cells as vessels carrying information that impacts on life - as, for example, DNA programmes our genetic inheritance.... I wanted the fluidity to link into the idea of the passage of time and the evidence, or memory, left behind; I wanted my objects to speak of the ideas they contain as well as those which pattern them.' The Queen's Centre has won two awards - the RIBA Award for the Yorkshire region, the East Riding Chairman's Award for Enhancing the Built Heritage for the East Riding.