“Every day I’m here I go out to walk on the South Wall. The work is very much water-based. The colours reflect sea blues and the golds of the sand. My inspiration comes from those walks and also, of course, from the west of Ireland.”

So commented Julie Shiels, when I met her in her pottery studio in Sandymount, surrounded by work in progress and captivating finished pieces

Julie pointed out the two kilns and explained a little about the process, which starts, she said, with a bag of clay. She puts a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel and shapes for example a jug, which is then allowed to become leather-hard before the first firing in the kiln for about 8 hours. Then it is decorated and put back in the kiln for another 12 hours– this is the glaze firing.

Julie herself uses a variety of techniques, some of her work is thrown on the wheel, and some of it is handled. She said “My work has to be hand-painted to achieve the desired variety of colours and movement. Work could be sprayed but to get the sense of movement it has to be done by hand.”

Julie is from Cavan and originally had a studio in Irishtown, which became too small. She started seven years ago and for three years did showcases at the RDS Craft Fair, building up a reputation. Foot and mouth intervened and began a rapid downhill spiral for Irish craftspeople. With the fall-off in tourism orders many businesses went to the wall.

She says “I survived, I believe, because I am very diverse. I teach night classes, and children’s workshops and in doing that I actually discovered that this is how I prefer to work. I’m not really a mass production potter, I’m much more an artist. And I also like to teach. When I was just supplying shops fulltime I found that I lost touch with my creativity.

“I teach a lot here in the studio. Tuesday and Wednesday nights, 7 - 9pm. Tuesday is an advanced class. There are six to a class. We work in a very individual way. All the students make individual pieces and are encouraged to develop their own creativity. Wednesday night is for beginners and less advanced. And there is the children’s class, which I plan to restart on Saturday mornings. I’m also an outreach teacher for the NCAD.

“Clay is good for people to work with. They start playing with it and suddenly realise that they can do things with it without engaging the mind, expression seems to be born almost accidentally but that’s not quite the case, it’s just the nature of clay, it is a very unstressed way of creating.
“But of course I’m a potter,” Julie says, “so I end up working quite differently and I do get stressed. I get a monthly order from Kilkenny Design. I have to fire the kiln every week; it has to be full of work to make economic sense. If I don’t do that I can forget it.

As a potter I design my work first, so I am working to a prototype I’m working with ideas in my head. I do a lot of one-off commission work. I like to combine different kinds of work if possible”.
She pointed to the beautiful big-bellied vase decorated in flowing blue colours sitting high up on a shelf. Financially, she says, hers is not the easiest route to take but it is her preferred one.

Julie sells from the studio and can be contacted for classes, commissions, or sales at: 01 6671745.