Ali creates stoneware and porcelain ceramics which explore a simple Modernist genre of forms. Her ceramics are thrown on the wheel, then sometimes altered by hand, then fired in a gas kiln. Ali works with clays from Cornwall and France,  traditional clays that respond well with reduction firing.

Ali trained in Ceramics at Loughborough College of Art and also completed a postgraduate diploma at Goldsmiths University London. Ali also completed a training in production pottery for 3 years under the instruction of John Leach at Muchelney Pottery in Langport, Somerset. Ali was one of a handful of apprentices trained by John Leach and Nick Rees at Muchelney and has also worked alongside Micki Schoessingk at her beautiful Pottery in Cheriton, Gower, South Wales.

Overseas travels have enriched Ali’s work with cultural influence and colour. During the 1990’s she was employed as a VSO technical lead at a pottery in Nigeria. During her spare time she filled her sketchbooks with drawings and collected natural objects. Drawing continues to be an active part of her working process and development of ideas.

At her Trill Farm studio in Devon Ali enjoys making groups of work which form into series. She equates the slower time and attention required to work on a group of pieces with the rhythm of the natural world. Themes emerge as she travels along a thread of creative enquiry; stemming from an initial idea and steadily developing into a body of work. Her measured approach to making permits thinking time which, although is often seen as a luxury in today’s frenetic world, she considers is an essential part of her creative practice.

Some of these influences and sources of inspiration as well as the everyday in the studio at Trill Farm, and Ali’s thoughts on being a Maker are documented on Instagram on her feed.