Helen Felcey

United Kingdom °1979
research interests: ceramics, Craft, design, Health, well-being, Buddhism
affiliation: Liverpool Hope University
en

Helen Felcey is a ceramics–based artist and educator. Her professional experience traces a story of material practice intertwined with educational practice, undertaking artistic research in the field of ceramics. In 2009 she began to explore ways in which the use of ceramic as material and craft might feed into collaborative practice across a broader range of activity,  within art, health and educational contexts. She experimented with bringing different material and artistic voices together through projects such as the Pairings Project (2010), Manchester School of Art (MSA), and the co-edited book with Kettle and Ravetz, Collaboration Through Craft (Berg: 2013), which explored debates about the collaborative/social power of craft. Since 2018, she has been working closely with artist-researcher Prisk Falin. Together they have realised Emboied Clay (2018) and Sensorial Ground (2020) for the British Cerammics Biennial National Summer School Programme. Their collaboration has formed an ongoing conversation, which cotinually nourishes and extends the parameters of personal approaches to artistic research and practice. Helen tutors at Liverpool Hope University and Manchester School of Art. Alongside her work in arts and education, she is a trustee of Gomde UK Tibetan Buddhist Centre.  Her website helenfelcey.co.uk includes a variety of artistic and educational projects and roles undertaken since 2008. 

research

research expositions (collaborated)

  • Subtle Ground: Feeling our ways towards a supportive method in ceramic practice (2022) author(s): Priska Falin, Helen Felcey published in: Journal for Artistic Research
    This exposition focuses on the exploration and development of Subtle Ground, a method that directs attention during and through making with clay, in the context of creative practices in ceramics. The method takes a non-conventional approach to making; it focuses on being with the material instead of pursuing a conclusion in the creative process. The method directs the practitioner to follow aesthetic qualities in making understood from a pragmatist view on having an experience. In this exposition, the focus is on the author's collaborative work that has shaped the Subtle Ground method, particularly the workshop ‘Sensorial Ground’. In Subtle Ground, the idea of dwelling is emphasized offering the specific approach to making. The method consists of a series of exercises that direct attention towards subtle sense perception within the body. Through working with the Subtle Ground method, we suggest that it is possible to begin to understand the embodied dimension and how it influences creative practice. The Subtle Ground method has been built on the clay’s supportive qualities, bringing together sense perception and physicality, thus understanding the practice’s aesthetic qualities and connections to meditation.
     open exposition comments (1)