About

Sheila Hickey

After leaving school in the early eighties not knowing what career to follow I tried many different jobs from working in a contact lens factory, a slip casting pottery in Kilkenny , environmental field studies in the midlands and cutting and polishing fossilised limestone in Tipperary.
I decided along with one of my sisters to leave Ireland in 1989 to look for work in Jersey, Channel Islands. I was incredibly lucky to be taken on as an apprentice at Jersey Pottery where I gained invaluable knowledge and experience as a thrower.
Three years later I left Jersey to work for Gwili Pottery in Carmarthenshire for fourteen months, where I was taught to decorate, pack the kilns and continue my throwing skills.
After Gwili I set up my own pottery and now live in Milford Haven close to the sea as I love Pembrokeshire with its beautiful coastal landscape and rich diverse countryside.
For the first few years I produced wheel thrown, hand painted earthenware pottery depicting local flora and fauna.
More recently I have been working with porcelain because the translucency and fine dense structure of the clay allows me to create impressions of nature.
Whilst walking the coastal paths and lanes of Pembrokeshire I gather leaves and feathers, shells and rocks to use in my work.
Not all leaves and shells are suitable but its interesting to see which will make beautiful atmospheric pieces with chinks of light shining through.
This is why working with porcelain facinates me as you cannot always be sure what the finished piece will look like until it comes out of the kiln.