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Nicola McCabe
Nicola creates modern, ceramic homewares from her home studio in Muthill, Perthshire.
Nicola’s collection features a distinct delicate and minimalist aesthetic, and includes thoughtfully designed pieces for the home such as plant pots, candle holders, soap dishes and other small decorative ceramics that instantly enhance any home.
Nicola creates all of her ceramics under her own brand, Last Winter.
Aesthetic
Nicola’s work is heavily influenced by the landscape surrounding her home based Perthshire studio. Nicola draws on the mountains and the natural changing colours and light she witnesses throughout the year.
She uses a variety of different ceramic techniques to illustrate and decorate each of her pieces by hand. Her pieces are carefully designed as stand-alone items or in small groupings placed throughout the house.
Practice
Ceramics, like so many artisan practices, involve many processes in their creation. Nicola uses the slip-cast technique which requires her to first produce a plaster mould which she can then use repeatedly to produce the basic form of her ceramics.
Unusually, Nicola creates all of her own plaster moulds from wooden originals which she turns by hand on a lathe. This in itself is an age-old practice and this level of detail and care makes her work truly unique.
In slip cast work, liquid clay is poured into the plaster mould and allowed to set. Nicola may begin her decorating work at this stage, or wait until the piece has been fired in her kiln, depending on the decorative style she is aiming to achieve.
She gets a rush of excitement when she opens her kiln after every firing, as it is only at this final stage of the process that she can see how each item has turned out.
Nicola certainly embraces the traditional aspects of her craft, however, she is also interested in new ways of creating moulds and is currently experimenting with the concept of 3D printing.
Location and Links
Muthill, Perthshire
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