About
“I begin each piece with a thought or feeling; then I listen and the clay never fails to speak. As I twist, form, and squish, I watch how the clay molds and breaks. A rough edge. An unexpected ripple. An incidental poke. Those are the words of my clay; a language expressed through motion.”
MY STORY
Clay and I go way back. We discovered each other in a creek full of tadpoles and rotting leaves. Chunks of the California blue clay found its way back home to be shaped into shallow bowls decorated with flowers, twigs, and acorns. After drying, I placed them in the gutter and gushed water over them until they dissolved into a muddy stream. I was fascinated by the interaction between simple materials nature offered — earth, water, flora and light.
By the age of ten, I was making teapots on the potter’s wheel at an old forge turned cooperative ceramic studio. As a teenager, I spent more time in a city sponsored civic arts program than on the soccer field. In college, I fell in love with the alchemy of glaze calculations and benefitted from the guidance of experienced artists at San Francisco State University earning a degree in ceramic sculpture. Soon, I was invited to show my work locally and internationally.
Then something unexpected happened. I found myself on a roadtrip. For nearly a year, I traveled through ten western states in a green 1969 Ford Econoline van named Gypsy. I visited numerous ceramic studios, participated in unusual firing techniques, and most importantly, learned new ways of seeing myself as an artist.
PORTALS OF INSPIRATION
Since those first mudpie days, my exploration of life has drawn me closer to the elemental spirit of nature — its unparalleled beauty, its connectedness, its raw power — and by extension, my intimate relationship with clay. An unexpected discovery on a forest floor may lead to a new sculpture exploring the transient life of a seedpod, once protecting life, now offering itself to sustain future generations. In Yosemite Valley, where the sky is squeezed between unimaginable alps of granite, I translate the experience of feeling both insignificant and interconnected into my work.
Looking into the California landscape and seeing the gnashing fissures of fault lines, I’m moved to decipher that feeling of impermanence into a visual reminder that change is constant and out of our control. The quiet beauty of spackled white snow on the disheveled red cliffs of the Southwest or the simple pleasure of sitting in a creek, tracing the texture of ochre lichen embracing boulders, inspires a quest for a new glaze or surface treatment. I bring these inspirations into my work today.