Patricia Shone was born in Scotland but grew up in South Devon and studied at the Central College of Art in London from 1982 to 1985, where she met Clay.She returned to the North and to making ceramics when she moved to the Isle of Skye 25 years ago. She is inspired by the geology and textures of the Highlands and the effect of erosion and of people on its surface.

The relative remoteness of the place, its landscape and climate, the scale of the hills, all resonate with people. In a world where nature is cowed and overwhelmed by human presence, this is a place where we can still feel insignificant. In her work, she tries to give a sense of that - the forces of nature, spontaneously formed textures, the unpredictable firing techniques, the acceptance of successes and failures.

The natural textures of clay are similar to the patterns of erosion and decay in the geology of the land.  Patricia aims to achieve a tension between the spontaneous patterns of texture and the formality of a vessel form. She creates vessels, boxes, bowls and jars because they represent innately human vessels of containment. There is another tension there too, between the natural and the human.