They first met as young design students at Newport School of Art in 1982 and 44 years later they are coming together again to celebrate and exhibit the work they’re doing today, the different artistic routes that have shaped their creativity and a long and wonderful friendship.

Stef Thelwell

A multi-disciplinary artist in the truest sense, Stef sees life and puts it on the page. She learned all about illustration, typography, film making and photography at college and all those skills still feed into a body of work that fundamentally tells stories.

 Having cut her creative teeth as a medical illustrator she spent 30 years as an academic book designer, focusing on print-based typography and image creation. 

‘My career taught me to be precise and to answer diverse briefs creatively. All that experience sits behind and informs my love of observing and sketching the people, places and things that happen around me. I never go anywhere without my sketchbook in case I miss a moment that really wants to go on the page,’ says Stef.

Drawn to landscapes and our human impact on them Stef is also fascinated by the form and structure of buildings and their different scales in urban and rural environments. This exhibition is just a snapshot of the work of an artist who loves what she does and is as playful as she is serious about it.

@thelwell50

Michelle Jones

Working mostly with clay and porcelain, Michelle’s practice is shaped by an intrepid exploration of material behaviour, hand process and the transformative power of fire. The work she produces today is vital and elemental and utterly unique – she’s come a long way from her early career days as a graphic designer in a small printing firm.

‘They were great times because I learned so much about production, materials and visual structure and all that experience gave me many different design disciplines to explore – I could choose to adventure with any of them!’ says Michelle.

Her focus as an artist though has centred on making art as a deeply personal journey that has helped her come to understand who she really is. She creates delicate porcelain bookforms and handshaped vessels and relishes the fact that every piece of work is as much the result of careful planning as it is of happy accident. Her work reflects her ongoing dialogue with touch and technique, control and the transformative power of the kiln – but perhaps most primally, between the finished object and the parts of herself she reveals along the way.

@chelle_potsnprints