Shirley has always made things since childhood, sewing dolls clothes or making things from found natural forms such as sea shells. She has been a designer, educator, craft maker, gallery owner and for almost fifteen years maker/artist showing work in galleries around the UK. She feels painting and ceramics overlap in the way she treats the surfaces, with a search for depth and a sense of herself. Her practise has tended to produce playful component pieces combined with found materials, assemblages inspired by creatures, birds and plants. It is now developing into larger scale semi abstract hand built sculptural ceramic forms and paintings.

Shirley’s art education background and initial design career was in textile/surface decoration, studying at Chester college for a foundation course and Leicester Polytechnic for a BA Hon’s, graduating in 1987. Self taught in ceramics, she works from a light filled studio in her home, which has been featured in publications including the The Observer Magazine and is situated near the east coast english seaside town of Filey. She also has a separate smaller painting studio which does not stop her producing larger scale works. An important part of her