SCAF Artist Talk Series 2025 - Part 1

Yorkshire artist Pennie Metcalfe offered a deeply moving response to the theme of Time with her fibre sculpture Kairos. Drawing on years of experience in fashion, ceramics, education and mental‑health work, Pennie returned to making after chronic illness reshaped her life. Wool became both a healing material and a creative catalyst.

Her piece explored the idea of timelessness, the sense of stillness found in ancient landscapes and traditional craft. Working entirely by hand, she used coil spinning and slow, meditative techniques to resist the pressures of modern time and reconnect with something older, quieter and more intuitive.

Placed on a slow‑turning plinth, Kairos invited viewers to stand still while the sculpture revolved gently before them. It became one of the most captivating presences in the gallery, drawing people in with its shifting forms and intricate details.

Ceramicist Laura Lee brought the atmosphere of the forest into the gallery with her raku‑fired vessel In the Shade of Now. Inspired by the woodlands surrounding her studio at Hall Farm Gardens, Laura’s work captures the colours, textures and quiet rhythms of the natural world.

Her firing process, dramatic, unpredictable and rooted in alchemy, uses reclaimed sawdust and plant matter, allowing the forest floor itself to imprint onto the clay. Metallic flashes, gestural glazes and delicate porcelain leaves created a piece that felt both fragile and resilient.

Laura spoke about the shock of returning to a favourite woodland only to find it felled — and the unexpected beauty of the regrowth that followed. Her work became a meditation on renewal, presence and the quiet strength of nature.

Leeds‑based artist Archie Brooks brought a sense of play, precision and quiet wonder to the exhibition. His kinetic sculpture, The Measure of Passing, transformed audience presence into something tangible. Each time a visitor walked past, a single wooden bead dropped into a bowl below, a soft punctuation in time.

Over the course of the exhibition, the bowl became a growing archive of everyone who had passed through the space. Archie described it as “a physical record of presence,” a way of making the invisible visible.

Behind the simplicity of the sculpture lay months of engineering: 3D‑printed components, an Archimedes screw, custom coding and countless prototypes. Yet the finished work felt effortless, a gentle reminder that time is shaped by the people who move through it.