I have been a potter for 20 years.   My creative journey includes making raku vases, high-fire tableware, and building large handbuilt carved vessels while attending graduate school.   These experiences inform my current work.   Presently I create tableware and serving pieces out of terracotta clay and which I then glaze in a spectrum of deeply hued colors.

I choose to work within the world of functional pottery because I am interested in participating in the everyday world of people.   It is my great pleasure when an individual confides to me that I have made their favorite cup or plate or they describe how the sun falls on a piece that sits in the middle of their table.   The opportunity to engage in the daily rituals of people lives is a great honor.  

The aesthetic challenge in my work is sensory. For example, I question how the piece feels in the hand or against the lip. Is it visually pleasing and engaging?   The challenge is also intellectual.   How do I reinterpret the centuries of functional pottery in order to have my own voice?   My influences are myriad.   Richard Diebenkorn, pelicans, silver services of the 18 th and 19 th century, Brancusi, quilts, wood molding, upholstered furniture, Arthur Dove, formal dinner settings of the 30's and 40's and ripples on the sand left by the ocean, are some of the resources I draw upon.    My concept of how the creative impulse works is that all these ideas (and more) are distilled in my conscience/unconscience and then are on hand when creating.   The ideas are not dominant but are rather like a library in ones' head, ready for the picking.

The techniques I use include wheelthrowing, handbuilding, extruding and press molding.   I utilize any means to render the vision that dances in my head.