Sometimes you need to stop doing something to really see it afresh.

When I was at art school, a lot of art education is about art being a means of self-expression, and as an 18-year-old I didn't know if I had a huge amount I wanted to express. It was a big moment when I decided I wanted to shift the emphasis or the intention of my art from something I disgorged myself upon and something that actually fed me or made me see the world or understand the world.

Abandoning the project was incredibly stressful after having gone through the process of building the room, installing the kiln, collecting the stones, sitting with the kiln day and night as it came to temperature, experiencing the failures.

People are the nature of the city, and you can feel it in the pavement.

The process of growth is obviously critical to my understanding of the land and myself. So the process is far more unpredictable with far more compromises with the day, the weather, the material.

The British climate, although it is very wet, it is quite mild in winter. We don't get these severe - generally don't get severe winters.

I think I have been fashioned by the fickle weather of Britain that it is - it's forever changing. There's no kind of constant sun or dry weather or freezing weather, and I'm always having to change and adapt to that.