Anna Noel

Anna Noel attended Bath Academy of Art from 1979 to 1982 where she attained a First Class Honours Degree in Ceramics. In 1984 she set up a ceramics studio in Wales with her sister Sarah. Her pieces have been included in many exhibitions in Wales and England.

Anna Noel was first drawn to decorative figurative images from a variety of sources. She became fascinated by the simple serenity of T'ang Dynasty earthen ware figures and horses. At the same time she came to enjoy the colour and vitality of fairground and circus animals, folk art, the ethnic art of pre-Columbian South America and the masks and animal forms of North American Indians. Another area of interest for her is old, unsophisticated simply carved and coloured toys - decoy ducks, weather vanes and stylised boldly shaped and painted tin toys and puppets.

She describes her work as a mish-mash of these influences."__"I like the soft warmth of the surface of old toys and faded, old, carved wood and after much experiment with finishing techniques at college, I decided that Raku offered me a lively surface which seems most sympathetic to my ceramic images. With Raku I can achieve an interesting surface without glazing the whole piece, therefore keeping the image spontaneous and less worked on."