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F<\/span>or many months after skin cancer surgery, Linda Pitcher couldn\u2019t leave the house. She avoided answering the front door, and if she had to go into her local village, she wore a hat and pulled it low. Now, at 61, she is taking part in her first major ceramics exhibition, at London\u2019s New Designers next month, where she will look visitors in the eye. \u201cIt\u2019s nerve-racking. But I\u2019m going,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Pitcher has not only had to overcome cancer, but also post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) triggered by the surgery, which entailed removing a large part of her nose. When the bandages were unwound after her first skin graft, the nurse held up a full-length mirror. \u201cI fainted. I was sitting down, but I fell to the right. Half my nose had gone. Then you\u2019ve got to walk out to your life and see people. No, no,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was no support. I was so self-conscious.\u201d<\/p>\n Desperate for a way out of depression, social anxiety and PTSD, Pitcher embarked on a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). With the therapist\u2019s encouragement, she went to the supermarket in nearby Hereford. She managed a conversation at the counter. She made progress.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you miss?\u201d her therapist asked.<\/p>\n \u201cSketching on location,\u201d Pitcher replied. She had struggled at school in Leicester, <\/strong>where she had taken A-levels in science. \u201cI worked my back off and I still got bad grades, and I never forgave myself,\u201d she says. In 2022, she was diagnosed with dyslexia, but as a child, \u201cI just thought I was thick.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, she had always gravitated to mark-making. After saying goodnight to her parents, she\u2019d sneak out of bed and \u201cstart working with pastels\u201d. As she got older, she\u2019d \u201cgo into the city and draw\u201d \u2013 in Leicester, where she lived, or Birmingham \u2013 \u201cand capture people\u2019s expressions\u201d. Now, she sees that sketching was \u201ca way of talking\u201d.<\/p>\n Pitcher had a succession of jobs \u2013 selling tickets in a bus station, graphic designer, print sales representative, administrator at a hospital. She married, had two children and, over the decades, she continued to sketch.<\/p>\n At 58, she embarked on a degree in contemporary design crafts at Hereford College of Arts. She had taken A-level art at night school in her 30s. (\u201cI took a bottle of wine in, had a drink and just painted. Got an A grade for that,\u201d she says.) She started her degree certain that she was going to become a printer. Instead, \u201cI walked out going, \u2018There\u2019s something about ceramics, the feel, the process. The fight with that material.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI could see a path ahead which I never \u2013 never, never \u2013 thought I would attain. And I got a degree! This person who thought they were so thick.\u201d<\/p>\n Her approach to ceramics entails drawing on to bisque vessels \u2013 white, blank, after a first firing \u2013 on location.<\/p>\n <\/span>Linda Pitcher with a collection of her pottery.<\/span> Photograph: Joann Randles\/The Guardian<\/p>\n She loves porcelain \u2013 \u201cthe hardest medium\u201d. It\u2019s \u201clike throwing cream cheese. It knows your mood. You throw it on to the wheel and you can feel it as it\u2019s centring, the trouble you\u2019ve got. If you\u2019re stressed, it will pick you up. It\u2019s the chase I enjoy. Will it work, will it not work, will the sides collapse?\u201d<\/p>\n You keep going. Exactly the same every day. You pick your head up and go<\/p>\n She often knows how the porcelain feels. \u201cIt\u2019s having the resilience \u2013 and I use that word \u2013 because when things go wrong when you\u2019re throwing, you have to rethrow or the pots will stress-crack. It\u2019s like me,\u201d she says. \u201cYou keep going. Exactly the same every day. You lift your head up and go.\u201d<\/p>\n Her focus is on drawing on to the ceramic in a way that \u201cpeople can see the drawing, but the vessel can have colour too. You don\u2019t want your voice as a mark-maker to be hidden by colour.\u201d<\/p>\n These are the problems Pitcher works through, out on location, in Hereford, London or Bath, while strangers stop to chat.<\/strong> \u201cPeople give their life stories. The attention deflects. You are no longer the focus. As you draw, you\u2019re listening. You catch the speed of it,\u201d she says. It all goes into or on to the pot. Each one contains so much.<\/p>\n Pitcher still finds \u201cevery day a struggle\u201d. But some things have changed. \u201cNow, when I talk, I look at people. And I forget I\u2019m doing it.\u201d Completing her degree, working with porcelain \u2013 she won the great northern contemporary crafter award \u2013 has \u201cgiven me worth, drive, motivation and confidence. It\u2019s given me my life back.\u201d<\/p>\n New Designers is at the Business Design Centre in <\/em>London, from 2<\/em> to 12 July<\/em><\/p>\n Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?<\/p>\n