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I find it rewarding and challenging to make pots people will use. In my home growing up, hand made objects held special value. They were gestures of consideration and love. I continue to find objects a dwelling place for intention and association. The parameter of function both limits and frees me. It gives me direction and attaches me to community. Eating with family and friends instills a sense of place and relation. At the table I assess finished work and connect studio practice to living. This starts the cycle of making again. I want my pots to live in the kitchen where economy and celebration infuse life with purposeful beauty.
The processes I use yield complex forms defined by animated lines and soft planes. Multiple parts are pieced together. At times I combine wheel thrown and hand built parts. At others a singular method is used. The slab parts are patterned and laid over bisqued clay molds. I build these molds with reclaimed clay and shape them with the wheel or by coiling building. I find they give me the ability to make slab pieces with consistent volume. When I first approached hand building I had complicated patterns for every shape. Over time I have simplified patterns. With practice the process has become nimble and intuitive. This is freeing to me. Simple patterns are easier to augment and develop into new forms. I find refinement like a glacier moving down a valley: troublesome areas are meditatively eroded away and new ideas spring to mind. Slow practice yields fluidity in process, allowing me to shift focus to formal elements, intentional references, and how a pot will feel or fit into life.
Pots are a place where I embrace abstraction of emotions and communication in form. Birds are starting places in my study of stance and expression. I want to capture their expressions of precision and breath. The awkward pelican and elegant, buoyant loon embody curious shapes I mesh with geometric, sensual, and architectural elements. On the surfaces of my work, I merge our culture’s signals and nature’s placement of hue. Even in the Seattle winter, humming birds flash and scoot for nectar from my rosemary bush. Traffic lights illuminate the night, demanding attention as I bike through the city. With intentional placement, these visual messages imply function, trigger associations, and call for exploration. I find the relationship between form and surface integral and defining. Each informs the other within my cyclic studio practice.
The reciprocal relationship between my work and my life is unfolding; my chosen pathway in clay directs my life. As I strive for balance, the lessons I transfer from biking, snowboarding or gardening enrich my studio practice. Time with family and friends feed my inner life. I am gathering and truing my ideas, process, and dreams.
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