Abbotsford, British Columbia
Emma has been creating with clay since the age of 6. Her first sculpture of a dinosaur started a life long love of playing with mud, in all its forms. She learned to throw pottery on a wooden kick wheel, using low fire earthenware clay. Several of her plates and mugs still survive over 40 years later.
With a family history steeped in the potteries of Stoke-On-Trent (she is a distant cousin of renowned potters, Josiah Wedgewood and Clarice Cliff), Emma always loved pottery and clay crafts. After a 32 year career in research science, she took up pottery again under the tutelage of local master potter Herman Venema. In 2020, Emma joined the Gallery 202 art gallery in Mission, BC, as potter in residence. When the studio closed down in 2023, Emma joined two other members of the Venema Studio, to build the Stable Hands Pottery Studio in West Abbotsford. Since then she has worked to refine her creative style, focusing on pieces that provide personal joy and satisfaction.
She is inspired by the Seto mingei pottery of the Edo period, George Ohr, and Shoji Hamada, as well as more modern ceramic artists such as Kai Tsujimura, Emma Bridgewater and Phil Rogers.
Emma creates functional as well as sculptural pieces, and is currently working out of the Stable Hands Pottery Studio in Abbotsford, BC.
Having declared she would never make a teapot, Cathy Jefferson helped change her mind, and Emma now focuses on making teapots in all shapes and sizes. She is developing her creativity through that most mundane of functional objects. She enjoys 
the process of shaping the body of the pot, then making the spout, handle and lid all complement that shape, to create a pleasing visual. This is then enhanced by the application of carefully selected glazes to supplement the shape.
She has recently been creating larger pots, working with up to 9lbs of clay. As she develops her throwing skills further, she plans to create larger work that can be positioned as statement pieces. Her goal is to recreate a vase made by Herman Venema, in her own style.
