Current Work - United by the Sea Mural
This is a mock-up of United by the Sea, CreativeLooe's first community art project, which we are currently planning to install by Easter 2027.
The finished mural will comprise more than 800 hand -crafted ceramic fish created by local schoolchildren, currently safely stored as we prepare for installation. On 8 September 2026 we received full planning permission to proceed with the installation at the Lower Quay Stores.
It all started with this image, which I posted on WhatsApp in March 2025 after seeing the recently rebuilt Lower Quay Stores and thinking it would be an ideal site for a community landmark.
Initially I imagined a painted mural with portholes through which viewers could access online stories about Looe's maritime history. Early discussions quickly evolved into a far more ambitious vision bringing all the local schools together to create a tangible, tactile piece of art using ceramic fish to create the mural. The children could make the individual elements while CreativeLooe retained control of the overall design.
I've had the privilege of leading the project for CreativeLooe, with a great deal of help from people with the skills and enthusiasm to turn the idea into reality.
The brilliant idea of using ceramic fish came from Lesa Welch, Artist in Residence at Looe Community Academy (LCA). Lesa has played a vital role in the project, hosting and running all of the core fish-making workshops at LCA.
Many other talented people have also played important parts, among them TV producer Lorna Dickinson, graphic designer John Featherstone, ceramicist Gwen Vaughan,architectural consultant Andrew Thomas, and architect, furniture maker, and entrepreneur Luisa Helena Gonzalez Mijares.
While we thoroughly investigated many sites around town for the mural, the Lower Quay Stores was by far the best location. Highly visible, even from West Looe, it sits on a bustling pedestrian route deeply connected to Looe's maritime heritage.
Given its location in a conservation area, we took great care to align our design with local planning priorities. We were delighted to help fulfill the vision of Looe's Neighbourhood Plan, which calls for artistic installations to enhance our local sense of place and celebrate public spaces.
In July 2025 we staged a clay fish-making workshop at LCA for key stakeholders, including Looe Harbour Commission, Looe Town Council, East and West Looe Town Trusts, Looe Development Trust, the RNLI and others.
We shared our vision to celebrate Looe's maritime identity and inspire pride in our young people, and we were met with overwhelming encouragement and support.
The clay-making workshops, expertly led by Lesa Welch, began in October 2025.
The logistics were a true labour of love: which meant me preparing and transporting up to 120 half-kilo packs of clay to schools, collecting the finished pieces for initial biscuit-firing by Gwen Vaughan, and recycling the remaining clay for the next session.
Originally we planned to make a first batch biscuit-fire them locally and then transport them to Arts University Plymouth for glazing and a second firing. That turned out to be impractical, so to streamline production and keep the process rooted locally, I bought and refurbished a kiln in my workshop—an addition that allowed us to scale up our ambitions significantly. It also meant (as you can see from the illustration that it sat directly underneath our family bed!)
More than 30 wonderful volunteers helped with the glazing. Typically, about half a dozen of us could glaze around 80 fish — one kiln load — in just over an hour.
It was repetitive work, but it was also a remarkably sociable part of the project. We couldn't have made so many fish without the volunteers who gave up their time to help.
Keeping the whole process local made the project much more manageable and saved a considerable amount on transport. More importantly, it meant we could make far more fish than originally planned. In the end, more than 800 fish were made by pupils at Looe Community Academy, Looe Primary Academy, Polperro Primary Academy and Trenode Church of England Primary School. I ran the fish-making workshops in the primary schools, while Lesa Welch led all of the workshops at LCA.
On 28 March 2026, we laid out the first 623 completed ceramic fish in a giant shoal across the floor of LCA's assembly hall. It was a wonderful moment for the participating children to see their individual creations form part of a breathtaking whole. The milestone event also helped us fulfill the requirements of our first FEAST Bomm Bras grant. Laying out the shoal gave us invaluable insight into how to arrange the fish to capture a natural, dynamic movement on the final wall.
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Creating a permanent coastal installation is a collaborative process, and working alongside the Looe Harbour Commissioners has helped us refine our technical approach via several prototypes to ensure the mural remains durable, beautiful, and easy to maintain for decades to come.
To ensure the highest standard of structural integrity in our marine environment, we have now partnered with Mapei, one of the world's leading manufacturers of tile-fixing systems.
We have crafted 96 test tiles using the exact clay, glazing, and firing methods as our ceramic fish and Mapei’s specialist laboratories are currently testing custom fixing systems on rendered surfaces to determine the absolute best long-term solution for our specific wall.The testing will take about two months, so we hope to start installing the mural in January 2027.
Funding and Community Support for the Project
Funding a project of this scale was something of a new experience for me. We initially estimated that the whole project might cost around £30,000, but the design and the way we have made the fish have evolved considerably as the project has developed, allowing us to streamline our budget
We started by raising money ourselves by selling United by the Sea T-shirts and tea towels (designed by Lesa Welch), together with calendars and small ceramic fish to the community who generously responded and we are deeply grateful for the financial backing we have received, from FEAST, Cornwall Community Foundation and a particularly substantial donation from Red Planet, the production company behind Beyond Paradise.
Looking Ahead to Easter 2027
With the fish crafted, planning permission granted, and site approval secured, we are entering the final leg of our journey. Getting the fish made was only half the job. Now we have to get more than 800 of them onto the wall. Once Mapei completes its lab testing, we will finalize our mounting strategy and prepare the wall for installation, aiming to begin in early 2027.
United by the Sea stands as a true monument to community collaboration—bringing together local artists, schools, civic organizations, businesses, and volunteers. We cannot wait to reveal the completed mural on the wall where it belongs by Easter 2027!