Fleeting beauty

I love the directness of clay, the way you don’t need anything between you and the material, and the way it responds to every touch

Unusually for an artist, Phoebe Cummings makes work that is deliberately designed to disintegrate. She creates large-scale, site-specific sculptures specially commissioned for temporary exhibitions. Her elaborate, fantastical plant forms are made out of clay, but instead of firing it, Phoebe leaves the