Hand built ceramic toad sculpture, pale cream body with warted texture, green glass eye, perched on a red-orange orb.
The bumps aren't random. A toad's skin is built that way on purpose, dry and warted instead of the wet smooth skin a frog wears, and it's the reason a toad can sit out in a garden all day without drying out the way a frog would. This one carries that texture across the whole back, close-set and irregular, nothing decorative about it.
Low and heavy through the body, weight settled rather than sprung, the back legs tucked rather than ready to jump. That's the toad's whole strategy: sit still, rely on the skin, let whatever's hunting lose interest. The green eye is the one bright thing on the animal, the kind of colour that only shows up this clearly when something is finally looking straight at it.
Built in stoneware, the body worked in oxide wash under a pale underglaze, ink used to settle into the warts and seams so each one holds its own shadow. Eye glazed in green. Perched on a red-orange orb, round and slightly rough, more stone than sculpture prop.
Stoneware, oxide wash, underglaze, ink. 13 x 12 x 8 cm. 2026. Commissions welcome.
