Janet Hamer’s birds are first and foremost sculptures made in ceramics. There is excitement in the essentialised shapes and the use of colour. Hollow vessels are transformed by simple additions and persuasion into evocations of geese, ducks and grebes. A subject is always based on a particular species, observing the shape, evolved for a lifestyle, the patterns and colours. The translation into fired clay, slips and glazes may appear to be true to life or may display more imaginative selectivity, moving from ornithology to sculptural choices.

Janet has won first prize in the National Eisteddfod of Wales. She regularly writes on ceramics including articles for Ceramic Review, Crefft and Shards. Janet and Frank together wrote ‘Clays’ for
Pitman / Axner, and have recently revised and expanded their extremely popular ‘Potter’s Dictionary of Materials and Techniques’ (5th edition. A&C Black).