About me

My name is Adela Alonso-Vidal and I was extremely fortunate to grow up in the beautiful Mediterranean island of Menorca, Spain. I spent 16 years of my adult life in Barcelona and I moved to Cardiff, UK, in 2013.

I discovered ceramics in 2022 and it quickly became much more than a hobby. I’m autistic and ADHD, and my brain is always active. Working with clay allows me to slow down, focus on the present moment and transform ideas into tangible forms. Ceramics has become an essential source of balance, creativity and joy in my life.

While I have attended workshops and classes over the years, I consider myself largely self-taught. Developing my skills through practice, experimentation and persistence has been an important part of my creative journey.

Alongside my ceramic practice, I continue to work in an office-based role. This means my pieces are created slowly and thoughtfully around the rhythms of everyday life.

About my ceramic beings

My main sources of inspiration are nature, the sea and my imagined worlds, where beings come to life and then become tangible in clay.

I create detailed, colourful ceramic sculptures inspired by animals and plants. Each of them becomes a character in its own right. Some are playful, some whimsical, others feel more like presences, but all of them are unique in their own way.

As an AuDHD, I need both routine and novelty, so I work in small batches. This allows me to spend time exploring new ideas, while also making sure I give each piece its own time and dedication. I also revisit earlier beings and create new generations of them from time to time. As my skills and ideas evolve, so do they.

I create them because I need that sense of wonder, connection and gentleness in my own life. They somehow give me that back through the making process, and every time I look at them once they are finished.

My hope is that my ceramic beings also bring a sense of wonder, connection and calm into other people’s homes. 

How I make them

I use a variety of techniques such as pinching, coiling and slab building. I then add details through modelling, carving and slip trailing.

My pieces are primarily hand-built in stoneware clay and finished with colourful earthenware glazes. This combination creates fine crackle patterns, known as crazing, which I absolutely love for the uniqueness they bring to each piece.

To make some of my work more accessible, I sometimes use plaster moulds created from my own original designs for certain pieces. While these help speed up certain stages of the process, every piece is still individually finished by hand.

My pieces are not mass-produced and have subtle imperfections that are part of the making process. These marks are intentional in the sense that they are accepted, not corrected. They reflect the human nature of handmade work. They are perfectly imperfect, just like all of us.

I stamp, date and number every ceramic being, making them even more unique.

The Green Heart Story

You may notice a small green heart appearing throughout my work. This first appeared on an early piece called A Hug from Mother Nature, and it became part of my ceramic beings since.

The sculpture represents a girl being held by nature, recognised and accepted exactly as she is. Growing up, my mother used to say ‘My Adela is so heartfelt‘, so this piece is a reflection of that sensitivity, the longing for unconditional love, and the deep connection I’ve always felt with the natural world.

Over the years, the green heart has evolved alongside my work. Sometimes it appears as a heart, sometimes as a dot on the forehead. While its form may change, I have kept it as a reminder that sensitivity can be a strength, and that there is beauty in approaching the world with an open heart.