Annie began my making as a young child. She would enjoy making soft toys, clothes for dolls (and later herself) or creating food in her Italian parents' kitchen. At school, handling clay extended that making experience.

Annie Tortora portrait
Annie Tortora image

Later, undertaking a 3-D Art & Design degree, she experimented with wood, metal, and glass course but it was clay that held her attention, and still does to this day. Annie has been connected with clay professionally for many years now, principally as a ceramics tutor in A&F education and in an Arts for Health service based in the NHS.

"I truly believe in the therapeutic power of Creativity & Art. I'm proud to have worked in this capacity for over 30 years. Alongside this, I've practiced ceramics for pleasure, for my own creative development and sustenance and I've enjoyed, working on commissions and exhibiting at intervals along the way. Now, as my teaching commitments reduce, I devote more time to creating in clay. This excites and fires me. I am exploring and developing three bodies of work and interest, which are inspired by my leafy garden in Worsley, my curiosity in Japanese aesthetics and my joy cooking."

Annie hand-builds using traditional techniques of modelling, slabbing, impressing, and press-moulding. She then glazes and fires her ceramics to high earthenware temperatures after decorating with metallic oxides and under-glaze pigments.