Helena Brennan

Helena Brennan was born in Dublin 1942.

She says of her practice,

Handthrown porcelain and stoneware is my work.

I make a wide range of functional and decorative pottery thrown on the potter’s wheel, glazed with ash and oxides and fired in reduction to c1270 degrees centigrade – for over 60 years now.

Recent Porcelain work taps into the current interest in drinking exotic teas requiring ergonomic reusable cups, lids, strainers and teapots for their infusions

My current work is thrown and sculpted installation pieces mounted on metal or turned wood, made for garden, conservatory or foyer and inspired by local flora and fauna. These show off my new cherrywood ash glazes which add excitement to the opening of firings in the catenary arch kiln I built here in ’09.

I am now building a woodfired kiln to explore the delights of ash glazes fired with thinnings from a selfseeded copse of birch here in my bit of paradise at Avoca Co. Wicklow – ‘the Garden of Ireland’.