Welcome to Find a Maker

MAKER OF THE DAY

Maz Nash

My practice merges fine illustration with handcrafted ceramics, creating deeply personal, story-rich pieces that act as both art and storytelling vessels. Working predominantly with underglaze on ceramic forms, I use each piece as a canvas to explore and express my lived experiences. My work spans from jewellery to vases and other functional or decorative forms, each piece crafted to hold both purpose and narrative.

My work is rooted in my identity – being trans, autistic and ADHD shapes everything from the themes I explore to the way I approach making. I’m passionate about representing gender-diverse narratives, and each of my characters is genderqueer in some way. I feature a wide range of body types in my work, often including gender-affirming details such as top surgery scars – something I include both to reflect my own journey and to help normalise these life-saving procedures. By illustrating these marks without shame, I hope to raise awareness, foster acceptance, and show that trans bodies in all their forms are natural, powerful, and worthy of celebration.

Nature plays a vital role in my work. I often blend human and animal forms, incorporating trees, suns, moons, and woodland creatures into my illustrations. This fusion of the natural world with trans bodies challenges the harmful societal message that queerness or transness is somehow ‘unnatural’. Instead, I aim to show through my work that we are natural – transgender bodies are beautiful, organic, and deeply connected to the world around us.

Each ceramic piece is a narrative, with scenes that unfold as you turn it in your hands. I love to create stories – sometimes captured in a single moment, and other times through multiple panels wrapping around a form. The tactile nature of ceramics allows me to build a world you can touch, hold, and explore.

My neurodivergence is also a key part of my creative process. My autism lends itself to the highly detailed illustrations I paint by hand, using fine brushes and working with focused precision. Meanwhile, my ADHD brings a drive for novelty – I never make the same piece twice, and I choose to hand-paint everything rather than rely on streamlining methods. I thrive in the process of making, and the result is work that is thoughtful, layered, and deeply individual.

Ultimately, I hope my work offers a quiet act of resistance against erasure, against shame, and against the idea that trans bodies don’t belong. My ceramics are both joyful and defiant: they’re love letters to my community, and to anyone who’s ever felt unseen.

That resistance extends, too, to the shame so often attached to being neurodivergent. Living with ADHD and autism shapes how I experience and create, and I no longer see those differences as flaws to mask, but as integral parts of my perspective and imagination. Our divergences are what make us original, and through my art I want to show that there is beauty in every kind of mind.

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The Capital of Craft Podcast with Ami Pepper

The Capital of Craft Podcast

Craft Festival Wales Season 2026

Craft Festival Director, Sarah James MBE, met jeweller, Ami Pepper in her workshop / atelier in Newport to talk about her work, her family background and her approach to developing her jewellery collections. We also talked about what she is looking forward to at Craft Festival Wales 2026.

Ami Pepper Jewellery

Meet Ami at Craft Festival Wales at Cardigan Castle from September 11-13th 2026.

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Award Winning Festivals

Since 2003 we have run multi-award winning Festivals in Bovey Tracey, Devon, Cardigan and Cheltenham. In June, we host the UK's best loved and finest contemporary Craft Festival in Bovey Tracey featuring over 200 curated makers. Hosted in idyllic parkland on the edge of Dartmoor. Complimented by an dazzling number of workshops, demonstrations, masterclasses, talks, family activities, street theatre, live music and feasting! In March we head to the beautiful Regency town of Cheltenham, presenting 100 makers at Craft Festival at the Town Hall. In September we will be hosting our first Craft Festival Wales at Cardigan Castle.

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