Magazine editor Lydia Flack caught up with sculptor Halima Cassell and Watts’s Head of Collections and Exhibitions Laura MacCulloch to discuss working processes, inspirations and Mary Watts ahead of the opening of Halima Cassell: From the Earth, Watts Gallery’s first solo contemporary exhibition in the Historic Galleries.

LF: Halima, you are creating new work for From the Earth, inspired by the All-Pervading (1887-90) by G F Watts and the design elements of Mary Watts's work, what appealed about these in particular?

HC: Firstly, it was the kind of synergy with the clay, the love of clay, which was [Mary's] main love. That’s what she made the majority of her body of work with, but she was also very versatile with the materials that she used which is very important in my practice as well. Many elements of her methodology, crossed a lot of borders between fine art, sculpture and Art & Crafts. One of my favourite pieces of hers is what she did for George Watts which is in Limnerslease, depicting a mother and child with wings.

LM: Did you mean the bronze relief triptych? That was based after one of [George’s] paintings?

HC: Yeah! I know she’s more famous for ceramics and the garden ware, but that particular piece to me shows and defines that she really was a sculptor. I think what was really amazing was going into the Chapel. I love going into churches and cathedrals all around the world. If we ever go anywhere, I like to pop into those kinds of places because it shows a lot of history of the people and the times, which has been focused on the building. But Mary’s Chapel was very different from anything I’ve ever been in before because it has a beautiful, feminine, earthly, and very international-based influences in it. And again, that’s very much about me and my work, I have a lot of influences from different nationalities and cultures that play a very big part in what I do. So again, there’s that kind of linkage as well, and inside the Chapel, what was a coincidence as well as really exciting was seeing on those walls the virtues in spherical forms, embedded in the reliefs. My installation Virtues of Unity is about the spherical, feminine, earthly form which each vessel is named after a virtue, so that linkage again!

With George Watts's work, again the spherical form, the earth kind of repeats in lots of those paintings and again in Mary’s work and mine. I think the way George works sculpturally, the whole idea of making maquettes, and working up from the maquettes is really important in my sculptural work too, so I have a lot of plaster maquettes, which are enlarged. So, there’s similarity.

LF: That actually links really well into my next question which is, how to approach creating new work?

HC: Creating new work, there’s different ways to go about it depending if you have a brief, or if you have a research element to it which is great and then sometimes it might just be something new that you want to make, something that’s within you that you want to get out there. So, there’s different approaches for all of those, but mainly there’s having that kind of idea that your mind springs from. I work a lot in sketchbooks and I’ve been looking at some of Mary’s designs and the Chapel and exterior and interior forms and shapes, she uses. So those kinds of influences have played a big role in my thinking of the design and doing.

LF: So I was wondering what the average day in the studio looks like for you, so your day-to-day routine when you’re creating work?

HC: My ideal working day is just to be in the studio making [laughs] with no distraction but that’s…

LM: With no curators ringing you up!

HC: I always have a plan of what I want to achieve and then my perfect day is to achieve what I planned to do in the morning. So, with design work, sometimes I have to displace myself and just start designing then hopefully with those elements, I come up with some interesting designs which reflect what I’ve been researching, or reflect the things that have been discussed. So, a day designing could be wonderful, a day carving could be wonderful or a day making objects. The form can be quite physical but again, because there’s a lot of different processes and different elements within the work, each day in the studio is very exciting.

LF: Sounds lovely, to be honest!

LM: What do you listen to when you’re working, Halima? Because I think when we came, did you have Classic FM on?

HC: I’ve got Classic FM on now!

LM: Is that your usual?

HC: No, I listen to hits, I listen to The Greatest Showman, I listen to Indie Rock from the nineties, stuff like that. I listen to such a mixture of music.

LM: Do you always have music on?

HC: Yeah, I think music is a really important part for my working process. I think I spend so much time in the studio, it’s almost like a companion to that thought process of making. Some people like silence, but I like that melody going on in the background right now, because you’re working, you’re in that kind of role. I think both physically and mentally having the two together working and carving and producing something creative as well as listening to beautiful or exciting music kind of feeds in together. I’m making it sound like what I do is so wonderful, it is wonderful.

LF: It does! So, Obviously, you work with clay from all over the world when making Virtues of Unity which you mentioned earlier. I was wondering, does the material affect the finished product, and if so how have you interacted with the Compton clay for the commission piece for Watts?

HC: Well, all clays do react differently so a lot of the time I take chances on them. I got two Compton clays, one was dug from the locality and then from just a bit further afield about a mile or so. I call them Compton 1 and Compton 2, so Compton 1 is the commission clay and Compton 2 is that one what was dug out a mile away. Compton 2 had no plastic in it. It was very gritty and hard to use, even though it was sieved, so what I‘ve done is a small relief tile with the clay once it’d been sieved and purified, but then I’ve done another two in that same one. One that has ball clay in it, which adds plasticity to the clay, so I’ve put some of that in it, and I’ve made three wall pieces out of it, so one is natural, one has got ball clay in it, and one has got bentonite, which is another plasticiser for clay.

In the past I have done pieces with similar clay, like some Welsh clay had the same consistency where it didn’t have any plasticity and I had to make the piece about three times before it survived, because each time it was drying it was cracking. Then with the Compton 1, I’ve just done one tile with the pure clay, and then for the commission I’ve actually added grog into it. A final tile was created mixing from Compton 1 and 2 and all the additional ingredients.

LF: And what grog are you using?

HC: The grog that I’m using is a pre-fired kind of china clay that’s been crushed. The reason why I’ve added that is that the Compton 1 clay is very plastic compared to Compton 2 which has hardly any plastic in it. So, this plastic clay is great for doing small building and thin stuff with, but if you’re building sculpturally, the chances of it surviving or not warping would be very slim.

LF: Is this plastic naturally occurring in the clay?

HC: Yeah! Some clays have it naturally, and then some clays you dig up don’t have enough of it, so each clay I’ve worked with for Virtues of Unity, each clay has been completely different and I’ve taken a risk on all of them, but I didn’t want to take a risk on the commission [laughs]. So, it’s only got 10% in, so the clay feels just a bit stronger. It felt beautiful before, if you’re doing slipware, or throwing at the wheel it’s perfect, like they would have done at Compton Pottery. But anything bigger I’m not sure what Mary would have done, normally people add grog into anything big, just to make it more substantial and shrink and crack resistant.

LF: It’s kind of like baking isn’t it, just getting the perfect recipe.

HC: Well, I’m rubbish at baking, I don’t bake! [laughs] My baking’s the kiln, the clay. I use clay for sculptural purposes and the lovely thing about working on Virtues of Unity is that you feel so many different clays, so you start getting a feel of what they need and what they don’t need. If it’s got a lack of plasticity to the clay or it’s got too much plastic.

LF: I suppose after doing it so long you get a feel for how they’re going to react.

HC: Yeah, I think it affects the way I carve into the piece for Virtues of Unity because if there’s a clay that I’m unsure about then the carving will be quite subtle, but if it’s a clay I’m confident with then the carving and the design will be a lot more complex.

LF: So, I have one final question. We’ve got From the Earth until mid-June, but I was wondering if there was anything else you’re doing to get excited about this year?

HC: A couple of my pieces are going to the public art trail in Wakefield. They’re making a trail that people follow to walk to the Hepworth Wakefield museum.

LM: Sounds very cool. Then you’ve got Aberystwyth taking Virtues of Unity.

HC: Yes, at Aberystwyth’s International Ceramic event, so Virtues will be shown there so more pieces will be added to it. Then I’ve got Blackwells, which is very similar in some ways, [to Watts], with the Arts & Crafts connection. Blackwells is where I showed ten years ago so it’s kind of like a ‘ten years on’ show. And the book comes out this year! That’s going to launch with the exhibition and also a new tile for the shop. I’m bringing another one out later on in the year when it goes to Blackwells so there’ll be two of them altogether but both of them will have an Arts & Crafts feel to it as well. When you’re doing the design work you pick up all these inspirations from what you’re looking at and what you’re reading and that really influences what you do. I think that’s an important part of what I do, I don’t like doing direct copies of anything. I like my influences to feed into me, and what connects with me comes out onto a design, into a sketch book.

HC: One thing I’d like to say as well, the era that Mary was living in for women to be a sculptor or to be a true artist was a lot more difficult, but it’s lovely the way she got all that energy and that creativity out the way she did with the different skilled artisans that she worked with, I just think that was wonderful. For me, she’s a woman to admire really, in this day and age, she would have been an amazing sculptor, an artist in her own right. I have a lot of respect for her. Even though she didn’t have children, the community that she created was almost like a family and I think that’s really beautiful. Her very affluent background didn’t affect her ego or her stance or the way she was with people, and I think that comes across because she was very much a centered and energised person, in herself because of her creativity.