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Harrow College Tutors Get Set Network Work at the London 2012 Olympic Games Harrow College and Terry Venables join forces for 2012Ceramics student Gloria Ssali wins international prize
‘It happened by accident,’ laughs Gloria when asked about her achievement. ‘I got an email from the Dominican Republic inviting me to enter the competition called elit-tile.’
Elit-tile is an international tile competition held every two years in the Dominican Republic. The competition is through invitation only. As Gloria Ssali’s creations were featured on a website -Fineartamerica.com, the organisers liked her work and sent her an email to enter the completion, but she deleted it thinking it was a spam email. She retrieved it only after talking to her tutor- Joanna Anderson and started on her creation.
Gloria Ssali won the Best Tile Cultural Heritage award from the five categories in the competition. Gloria says, ‘winning the competition was like a worldly experience. I’d never won a competition before so, I couldn’t stop talking about it. It felt like I was appreciated. I drove my family crazy going on about it.’ She received $200 US dollars, a medal and a Diploma as her prize.
Gloria’s love for art came early while she was still doing her GCSEs, ‘I love creating and I love doing ceramics. Actually, I’m addicted to ceramics. It helps me socialise too.’ However, her love for ceramics and art is not the only factor that drives her, ‘my family came from Uganda when I was just 11 and England has been very good to me and my family. I really like to show world culture through my work as I feel like I need to give something back to the community.’
Even her art reflects that, ‘when I was thinking of an idea, I thought of a horse street scene, like in the area I’d grown up in Uganda. I also wanted it to look cool and funky so, I combined it with the work of Henry Moore. I completed it in two weeks and shipped it to the organisers in the Dominican.’
Gloria’s love for ceramics has been so strong that she has left her profession as a pharmacist and now wants to be a full-time artist. She started her course just four years ago and describes it as entering a new phase of her life. ‘I feel like I’ve found my soul. My tutors have helped me a lot to develop my work and I like to put my experiences in my creations. I’ve learnt so much at Harrow College and I want to do something for the College and the community.’
