Statement:

Strong form is important to me– but my forms are usually free of beads, joints, throwing lines, and other complications. I like my forms to have their own resolute presence, but I like the idea of a smooth landscape. I guess my subconscious sees figural forms, with soft curves, subtle shadows, and quiet seductive voices.

As a kid, I was always drawing. It’s just what I did when I got bored… and eventually it brought me to study art in college. Starting out at the university, I worked in two-dimensional mediums like ink and acrylic paint. When registering for my second year of college on campus, I decided to take an intro ceramics class on a whim. I got hooked on the wheel and decided to go on to the intermediate class. It took me a couple of semesters before I started decorating my surfaces with more than just a layer of “shop glaze”. I wanted to bring my two-dimensional background back into play by using stained slips on my work. Recently, I have been atmospheric firing in salt and incorporating sgraffito lines into the painted slips. With my salt-fired work, I use a reactive clay body that flashes warm tones of peach and orange when bare and fired in oxidation, and only recently have I combined glaze, salt-fired bare clay, slip, and sgraffito into my work. For me, the idea of holding a cup in my hand is as nearly as intimate as getting to know the lips of a loved one. It takes time to grow into a cup. How it feels in my hand, how the rim invites me to drink, and whether the rim drips when I pull it away are all things that change with every cup.