Andy Trimby is a ceramicist based at Fireworks Clay Studios, Cardiff, and is an associate member of the Crafts Potters Association and has work selected for the Crafts Council Directory. Andy has studied ceramics from a young age, most recently studying MA Ceramics & Maker at Cardiff School of Art and Design under one of the UK’s foremost ceramic artists Claire Curneen, graduating with a distinction in 2024.

 

While on the MA course, Andy discovered that an intuitive approach to handbuilding, working without tools, and with clay's natural plastic characteristics was an important part of his practice. Using an intuitive approach to the ancient process of coiling, Andy sculpts individual forms mostly based on the vessel that evolve from a meditative correspondence between maker and clay. An emphasis on hand marks is central to this making process, as evidence of the truly handmade, a record of touch working sympathetically with clays plastic material properties, reflecting a human place in nature. Surface treatment with clay slips, pigments and glazes highlight fingerprints and the hand mark texture. Through the work, Andy explores society's detachment from a deeper embodied connection with the material world caused by the dominance of vision. The work aims to serve as a reminder of the importance of our analogue, full embodied sensory connection to the world, in providing points of reflection, evoking a sense of touch.