Pam Rundle

 I live and work in the beautiful countryside in Ceredigion, with my husband and 4 very beautiful, and funny Italian Spinone girls. I was born in Liverpool, and lived on the Wirral for a large part of my life and, after various moves, finally settled in Wales  36+ years ago. I've always had a love of the countryside and a passion for animals. I'm very keen on Conservation and Animal Welfare issues; I donate an amount from each sculpture I sell to a number of selected Animal Treatment, Animal Rescue and Conservation societies. I've worked in some form of Art since I was 15 - starting in watercolour painting, but finally discovering the joy of working with clay . After trying various methods and materials, I settled with ceramic sculpture as my preferred form.  The unique hand-built sculptures are made using thin slabs and small pieces of clay and built up over a newspaper base like a puzzle or mosaic. The resulting fragility is integral to both the concept and aesthetic. I then Raku fire the majority of the sculptures – I find this give a richness and individuality to each hand made piece. 
I don't necessarily seek literal realism in my work. Rather, I am interested in conveying something of the awareness and presence inherent in living things — the qualities that exist beyond physical form. I hope that each sculpture might suggest something of the individual character and spirit of the animal, so that, in some small way, something of its essence remains within the work. And do I succeed? That’s not for me to decide. To quote from Leonard Koren's essay on Wabi-Sabi:  "Beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace."
Much of my work is by commission and I have sold sculptures as far afield as Luxembourg, Holland, Germany, Canada, Australia, America and Hawaii.  I have won various awards for my work including BIS at the Association Of Animal Artists exhibition, also RBIS and category winner at 2 seperate shows.