Nicola Scott-Taylor
It
is not surprising that
Nicola chose to become an artist, since througout her childhood
in Spain, Brazil and Canada her parents had pottery studios.
She
now lives and works from her studio in Richmond, London where
she teaches pottery and art and makes her own sculpture and wall hangings which
she sells and exhibits locally. This is her story.
"When my daughter was born I went back to college to retrain
in
Fine Art Ceramics and graduate as an Art Teacher so I could combine
motherhood with a career. I already had an Arts and Language degree
from Oxford which enabled me to get my first job working for
Colnaghi in Old Bond street, promoting art. Working in Public Relations
for over 20 years was pretty full on. Don’t get me
wrong I
loved working for Selfridges promoting their fashion and beauty
products. I got to work with stars like Mary Quant, Zandra Rodes, Jerry
Hall and Jasper Conran. I got to live in the Falkland Islands
where I worked as Government Information Officer and
Thailand,
working for Burston Marstellar. The Royal College of General
Practitioners, London was my last full-time job before having a baby at
40 which changed my priorities.
The environment concerns me, especially the detritus of man’s waste. Comunicating this in my art is important to me and was an
obvious theme in my earlier work where I took plaster moulds of
discarded plastic bottles and tubes to make clay parts to build my
'Rubbishmen' series. These remind us all that the rubbish we throw away
does not disappear underground, but evolves into an even bigger monster
and comes back to haunt us. My logo of 'Graffiman' too speak
of
man’s pollution and destruction of resources. I have tried to
make my later work more cheerful, more commercial if you like, although
the theme is just the same. With my ceramic sculpture, especially the
outdoor stacking ones, the themes have been about the importance for a
balance of nature. How animals rely on each other as a food chain and
nations of men rely on one anothers’ co-operation in order
for
world peace. The boxes making up the Temple all have windows depicting
the different cultures which make up the world. My recent sculptural
work draws similarities between traditions of Tribal men and Western
man to show we are all the same beneath the skin.
I exhibit and sell my smaller works through member societies SOFAP, London Potters and in the Historical Museum in Nevis, Caribbean. To comission work contact nikki@ceramicsdesign.co.uk
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