Sarah Guppy creates one-off hand-decorated ceramic domestic ware and hand-built sculptures. Her primary materials are earthenware and raku clay. Recently she has been experimenting with slip casting. 

Working in clay gives me the ability to paint and decorate in three dimensions.

Decoration is important to me, it equates with dressing the form. Using slips and under glazes I paint images of animals, still life images and patterns inspired by nature.

A commission to hand-build a kea bird inspired me to explore this area in more depth. I have since developed a series of hand-built candlesticks using pairs of owls, tuis and moreporks (New Zealand’s native owls), keas, doves and lovebirds.