Carol is currently working on further ash glaze research, using materials from her garden and the farm where she lives near Richmond, North Yorkshire.

She exhibited earlier this year with Donna Slyfield in their Naturally Northern exhibition at the Witham, Barnard Castle throughout April 2024.

At the end of September 2023, Carol attended a workshop at the Lund gallery with  Anna Lambert, where she learnt slip decorating techniques and produced a selection of plates. Carol then fired her work in her own kiln, using her own ash glazes, so the results are very different from Anna's own work.

Carol Metcalfe studied Arts & Design at the University of Sunderland, where she worked in several media, including textiles, printmaking, ceramics and glass. 

Carol then continued her studies, researching ash glazes using the waste material from arable pea and bean crops for her PhD, New Ash Glazes from Arable Crop Waste. The new ash glazes developed are fired to lower stoneware temperature, 1240C, significantly reducing the amount of energy required for the firings of her electric kiln. She has written articles on this subject for Ceramic Review magazine.

Carol’s ceramic art practice incorporates her home-grown ash glazes, together with other found materials, collected locally. She works with two main themes

• the landscapes around her home in North Yorkshire, executed by use of coloured slips and textures.
  
• secondly, texture created by found objects,leaves and weed seeds, collected around the farm where she lives, which she incorporates into her clay.

Thus, Carol’s ceramic pieces have a strong sense of place. Some of the landscapes are torn and reassembled, Carol’s response to the challenges the countryside has faced over the years, scarred but enduring.

A long-held ambition to use wind power to fire her electric kiln has been realised with the installation of a small turbine. Work is now produced using this renewable energy as far as possible.