Predominantly hand built stoneware, Janie’s work is fired to approximately 1180 -1200. It is decorated with coloured slips and wax resist and fired four or five times to 950 to achieve the desired surface texture. Janie uses various methods for building her pots, including modelling, coiling, slabbling and pinching. The pieces are then polished with bees wax to give them a less dry, more velvety quality and can be repolished whenever necessary.

Janie moved to Devon fourteen years ago. She graduated from Leicester Polytechnic in 1978 with a B.A. Hons. in three dimensional design (ceramics and glass): Whilst there, she focused mainly on mould-making and slip-casting techniques making bone china pieces based on natural forms. In 1979-80 Janie received a Turkish Government scholarship to study Turkish Ceramics. Based in Istanbul, she travelled widely developing her interest in the fascinating art and culture of this extraordinary country. On return, she worked as an Archaeological Draftsperson at Dover Museum in Kent, drawing their collection of Medieval and Roman pottery for records and reports.

Since moving to Devon, she has been working in stoneware, making sculptural pieces and hand built vessels. Janie sometimes smoke fires her pieces and finds the immediacy of this method exciting and stimulating. Her inspiration and interest centres around the female nude and the dramatic moorland and coastal landscapes of Devon and Cornwall. Her time spent in Turkey, with its extraordinary range of antique and contemporary ceramics, and at the museum in Dover have had an underlying influence on all her creative endeavours.