Liz Wycherley on her process

I'm drawn to any process where the material takes its own path and I become more of an observer. When I'm in the studio I'm actively trying to connect to the pull a child feels to push the button, crack the egg, pop the bubble.

I'm never fully in control, and that's part of what I love. The material does what it wants to do and the ego and logical side is taken away. It makes room for me to enjoy the process as an observer instead of feeling the burden of making a form say a particular thing.

I have two preschoolers and they live this way 100% of the time. If they see a potato chip on the footpath you know it's getting stamped on. I'm really inspired by their connection with their instincts. I'm also really tired from protecting them from their instincts. For me, working in a way that puts me back into a state of freedom and out of parent mode feels like the right counterbalance. I feel like the more I practice it the more I'm able to trust my own instincts.

Working this way takes me out of the equation which gives me a nice distance from the forms. I think it also leaves something else open. I've noticed in people choosing one at my studio that the ambiguity of the forms definitely creates a sort of three-dimensional Rorschach test. It's so interesting to see which ones draw different people in and which repel. Their subjective forms make me feel a connection to something primal and archetypal. There's perhaps a link to the subconscious that I've seen affecting people. I've had people stand at the shelf in my studio for over an hour trying to feel which form is right for them. Finding the right one is very much about connecting again with instinct.

What I hope these works can do is communicate that feeling of visceral freedom to anyone holding them in their hand or looking at them on their shelf. Everyone has it in them. I find it really sad that adults are trained out of it, I guess it stops us hitting each other with sticks but it also leaves us feeling a bit dead inside. I'm interested in the curiosity and satisfaction side, less so in the crushing bugs side.

I read that Jung used to go down into his garden and work most days on a tiny village he was building with stones and mortar by the lakeside. He did it every time he felt stuck. I guess it's a bit like building a model railway, completely absorbing and seemingly pointless to an outsider, but I know I would feel huge satisfaction in it. I feel it too when I see someone pruning a bonsai, or cutting a perfect edge on their roadside lawn.

I'm a ceramicist but I chose wax for this candle experiment deliberately for its ability to change again once it's lit. I'm very discouraged by the idea of filling the world with stuff. It used to get to me working in clay that lasts for millennia. I love that wax can completely disappear. To me these forms feel more like an experience than an object. The freedom of the way they are made ties nicely for me into the way that they burn. Lighting a form releases it into a second joyful process. My hope is that you can see it in the forms: the energy of the material, still alive.

I'm doing these experiments for the sheer joy, and I hope that feeling translates to others from being with the forms. There's a lightness in the way they're made, and I love that about them. I like to think of them as little totems on your shelf, encouraging you to follow your strange creative impulse. I've seen them used as effigies, offerings and even fortunes. I love that people take their own path with them.