Meet the York-based ceramicist offering art therapy through clay

The York-based artist can’t explain why she got the urge to encase her feet in clay, but she can describe in precise detail the way it made her feel.

“I experienced a tingling feeling which was really invigorating,” says Francesca, who works out of a studio in her home near the city’s racecourse. “I couldn’t stop giggling. I moulded the clay into slightly oversized slippers and the whole process just made me feel really joyful.”

Francesca glazed her feet of clay, fired them and after a while put them away in a box. That might have been the end of the experiment, but when Francesca, who is trained in glass and ceramics, was made redundant from a teaching job in 2013 and decided to enrol for a MA her thoughts returned once again to clay’s therapeutic potential.

“Over the years, every so often I have got the slippers out of their box and whenever I slip them on my feet start to tingle again,” she says.

“I guess they have always been there in the background and when I was thinking about what area of research I wanted to focus on for my MA, I kept coming back to our relationship with clay and wider nature. As part of my final exhibition I put up a wall and invited people to throw clay balls at it. It felt like something you weren’t supposed to do, almost a forbidden fruit.

Initially people were a little reticent, but as soon as they’d thrown their first one and experienced that release of pent up energy they kept coming back for more.

“I also offered some clay slipper sessions and again those who signed up were often a little unsure about what to expect. However, as soon as they felt the clay around their feet they instantly relaxed and it made me think I might be on to something.”

Now Francesca combines the clay slipper moulding with deep breathing exercises in a blend of mindfulness and art therapy. Her approach is founded on the principles of reiki and, while the pandemic has forced her to suspend face-to-face sessions, she did find a way to keep the therapy arm of her art business going throughout last year.

“Lockdown has been hard on so many people,” says Francesca. “I feel really lucky to be able to go out to my workshop in my back garden and while away hours on my art and I began to think that maybe there was a way of sharing that sense of escapism.”

Last summer, Francesca launched her clay therapy boxes. Each one contains flower tea, some incense and a piece of clay, a kind of natural version of a stress ball, and the idea is that people use the box to grab a few minutes of precious “me time”.

“It’s really interesting to see what people do with the boxes,” she says. “Some find relaxation through modelling the clay into an identifiable piece of sculpture, while others just press and stretch it. Either approach is valid and I think there is something really positive about taking time out from everything else that is going on. Clay is incredibly tactile and you really don’t have to be artistic to get something out of it.”

Francesca will be one of the artists taking part in this summer’s York Open Studios. Running over two weekends in July, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the event and organisers hope it will be able to go ahead as normal, albeit with visitors likely to be restricted to comply with social-distancing guidelines.

“Like so many other events, York Open Studios had to go virtual last year,” adds Francesca. “We are really hopeful that we can stage a live event and all the artists involved are working hard to ensure that’s possible.

“I think everyone missed opening their studio doors to the public. As an artist you spend a lot of time working on your own, so it’s really nice to meet people and talk about your work. Having said that, I think the last year has made us all more inventive in finding ways to get our work out there and that has to be a good thing.”

As well as refining her clay therapy sessions and taking on private commissions producing ceramic portraits, Francesca is one of the tutors at the National Saturday Club. The free sessions are aimed at 13 to 16-year-olds and, having continued despite the events of the last year, they have become a vital creative outlet for thousands of teenagers.

“People have been very generous and we have been able to send out some great art packs to all the students who have already produced some great work,” she says. “Of course it’s not the same as being in the same room with them, but in the circumstances it’s a good alternative.

“In many schools, art and creative subjects have been squeezed out of the timetable and the National Saturday Club is a way of giving opportunities to youngsters that they might not find elsewhere.

“It’s particularly important now with so many children being taught online. You can’t hope to offer the same range of activities over Zoom that you would in school, but this is a way they can let their imagination fly.”

In recent months, shows like The Great Pottery Throw Down and Grayson’s Art Club have helped fuel the nation’s creative spirit, and Francesca and her fine art painter husband Nicholas admits that it has become quite hard to move in their own house for works created during successive lockdowns.

“As soon as we can, our plan is to turn our home into a temporary exhibition space and invite people in,” she says. “We have made so much work in the last year that we really don’t know what to do with it, but once this is all over it would be lovely to find some of it a new home.

“The last few years have been really exciting, but also a lot of hard work. However, I am a great believer that things don’t happen by magic and if you don’t take that first step they will never happen at all.”

To see more of Francesca’s work visit francescakingceramics.com and for the latest details about York Open Studios, which is due to take place over the weekends of July 10&11 and July 17&18, go to yorkopenstudios.co.uk