Clay Minds is a continuing strand of my practice-based research that explores the intersection of neurodivergence, embodied making, and the neurological impact of working with clay. Funded by Cryptic Arts and Bath Spa University, this project has grown out of personal experience and wider conversations around neurodivergent learning, sensory processing, and the tactile intelligence of the hands. It centres on a simple question: What happens to the brain when we work with clay?

Clay holds a unique space as both a sensory material and a site of transformation. Its responsiveness, tactility, and groundedness allow for instinctive, repetitive gestures that can soothe and regulate the nervous system. For neurodivergent individuals - particularly those with sensory processing differences - these qualities offer an accessible, open-ended way to think through making. Unlike verbal or rigidly structured modes of learning, clay offers a soft resistance, a form of feedback that enables embodied thought.

Through a series of self-directed workshops and material-led experiments, I have invited participants - many of whom identify as neurodivergent - into shared spaces of making, curiosity, and slowness. These sessions were deliberately open-ended, non-hierarchical, and process-based. Participants were encouraged to explore the physical and emotional responses that surfaced during their interaction with clay, whether through pinching, rolling, coiling, or simply holding the material. Repetitive movements became forms of communication; messy play became strategy; and slowness became method.