After completing her degree at Wolverhampton, Virginia became an artist in residence at Edgbaston High School in Birmingham. After a year at the school, she moved to Rugby to share a studio with a friend from University, and started to make her dogs full time.

After two years in a cold, damp studio on a farm in Northamptonshire, she spent a year and a half at a studio, owned by British Waterways, right by the canal in Rugby. She now works from her studio at home.

Artist’s Statement

I started making dogs from plasticine from an early age and I guess I've just never grown up. A dog's face is so expressive. I love the way that repositioning an ear or eyebrow can change the whole look of a dog.

My dogs start their lives as hollow extruded tubes, which I then cut and form. I start by making the body, which I pack with newspaper to maintain its shape and leave until its leather hard. I then start to construct the rest of the dog, bracing its limbs with props and clay until they are dry enough to support themselves. Where the clay is joined I leave a torn or cut edge, which I hope, shows that I am using clay and how it's put together. I tend to let the clay and the extruder direct what the end dog will look like. For example, the clay tube may curl as I extrude it, which I will then use for the neck of a sitting dog, which is looking down.

Once dried, I fire the dogs in an electric kiln to 1180°C. They are then smoke-fired in a small, lidded brick built pit. Which is packed with torn newspaper, colour supplements and sawdust and left to burn down for a few hours. The spotty and patchy dogs that I produce are the result of masking areas, where I don't want the smoke to go, with clay and silver foil.