Meet the Maker

Hi, I'm Jakki Trainor the creator of the Figment Ceramics studio.

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I spent 3 years studying ceramics at UUB and relished the opportunities it provided for 2D work, 3D form, surface pattern, functionality, decoration, mark making and always surprises, but it is only now some 30 years later that I feel I am making the work that everything I studied for was leading up to. When I look at my current work, I can see that love of pattern and colour that emerged as a schoolgirl coming through; I can see the Art Nouveau, African art and Aztec ceramic influences that I briefly researched for different tasks coming back and asking to be taken further. I can see my love of nature, animals and folklore that couldn’t quite find the right direction at college now being developed into successful outcomes that represent how I feel about the world around me.

 

In the intervening years I have taught Art and Design to a great many students developing minds and skills and helping prepare individuals for their own journey into third level art education. Throughout all of those years I have continued to create my own artwork, sometimes for sale, sometimes just for self. In recent years I have launched myself back into the art world proper, creating, exhibiting, selling and relishing the new ideas that keep coming.

 

My current range of work feels like a culmination of all I have learned in the last 30 years. It celebrates the ability of clay to hold marks with the careful impressions and surface patterns. It celebrates the chemistry of glaze making in its sometimes vibrant, sometimes subtle colouring and merging of glazes. It celebrates both the simplicity and complexity of nature in the shaping of the clay to represent the world I see and imagine.