It is not surprising to me that I have chosen a path as a potter. In my home growing up, hand made objects held special value and were given as gifts to show consideration and love. I enjoy the community that eating together builds, and I find meaning making beautiful serving vessels. I am fascinated by the intuitive and the technical aspects of clay. Functional pottery holds the common ground of presenting a dwelling place for abstraction of emotion, personal meaning, and relation to environment– as well as living in the kitchen where economy and celebration combine to infuse life with practical beauty and vivacity.
I build porcelain forms whose defining lines and soft planes are geometric and sensual, elegant and animated, and architectural and organic. The experience I have sewing influences the way I pattern slabs, cut, alter and attach parts. Abstract planes are assembled into curving hollow shapes that communicate a playful and enticing energy.
Visual signals have meaning. I merge nature’s placement of hue and the signals employed in human created environments to imply function, trigger associations, and call for exploration. A signal of red on the humming bird’s throat, brake lights in the night, or a lipstick mark on a glass are starting places for me in a curious game of color placement
Color and form are inseparable in my mind. As I define shape I am thinking of glaze. Surface choices feed the next cycle of forms. I bring color into clay by pigmenting porcelain. A soft yellow glows through the transparent layered glazes revealing slips, inlaid stains and the soft patterning of underglaze and low relief marks. These various surfaces and forms are independent and defining of each other. It is this tug-of-war between roles where I find myself examining possibilities for expression.
Reflections on my surroundings, emotion, the physicality and process of clay are important to me because they puzzle together in functional pottery in a way that enriches and celebrates daily life. I will feel I have reached my goal when my work provokes thought, adds to the sense of discovery and play as it is comfortably used, and communicates my touch and personality.
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