Meet the Mountain Team: Polly Ann Martin

Polly Ann Martin joined the Blackberry team in 2016, starting at Blackberry Farm as the Art Instructor at Camp Blackberry. When the Mountain opened in February 2019, Polly Ann took her talents to the new Art Studio and became the Camp & Art Manager, helping launch and develop the creative programming. Her strong passion for pottery, that developed at a young age, came from a shared common message from her parents, "What could be made with one's hands has immense value." Polly Ann has been a visiting artist and lecturer, featured in multiple book publications, taken part in solo and group exhibitions and more. Polly Ann shares her personal statement as an artist:

"Handcrafted domestic pottery universally enjoys a unique and intimate status in our lives, moving from the everyday to the exceptional, offering itself as a participant in the daily celebration of human activity. Whether ceremonial or commonplace, pottery affords a personal relationship between the user, the body and the vessel itself.

It is a constant challenge to make pots that function on many levels. My aim is to produce functional pieces where the integration of the visual, the lyrical, the tactile and the useful coexist simultaneously.

It is my belief that domestic pottery can transform the home where it exists, for it is at ‘home’ that we are most comfortable to receive information."