Ann Bates graduating from the University of Derby UK with a First Class (Hons) degree in Applied Art, Ann has been working with clay for over 25 years hand building vessels and tiles. When her partner unexpectedy died it was working with clay that helped her through bereavement and inadvertantly changed the focus of her work. Over the past few years, Ann has concentrated soley on producing handbuilt ceramic funerary urns. She has worked with Funeria, in California USA, a gallery dedicated to supplying individual funerary urns, and also with individuals who have discovered her work through the internet. Ann's most recent collaboration is in conjunction with the newly built Long Barrow in Wilshire UK; inside this contemporary, spiritual monument are chambers with niches for the placement of funerary urns.
''An interest in archaeology, particularly standing stones with their carved decoration and symbols, led me to research ancient burial practices, due in part to my own experience of loss. I became intrigued by ceramic cinerary urns made in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age to contain cremated remains and began to design and make funerary urns, not copies, but contemporary interpretations with great respect for the past. Echoes: reverberations across millennia, is a body of work aiming to show through design, concept and materials, that ancient practices of honouring the dead can still be relevant today.''