My work in clay is influenced by the ingenuity of nature and humans. I am fascinated by the cleverness of life, always finding new ways to exist in the environments of Earth. Clay is full of environments as well: Rolling hills where the wheels roam around, slippery slopes of the reclaim mountains, vast and wide open lands of the hand built plains, colorful glaze lakes, rivers and swamps with endless tributaries and deltas to explore, pottery plaster coasts on which slip oceans flow, sprawling vitrified forests (pieces from the past), a fiery dragon sitting in its cave. Clay is the ultimate outlet. Humans have been mushing this stuff around for thousands of years. What happens if you do this? What happens if you do that? It has certainly kept me occupied.

 

I make wheel thrown multilayered columns by throwing off the hump and then moving to the next layer without cutting off the top. Then I move down to the next layer and so on, creating a column or base of clay with several layers or rims projecting out from the piece. These pieces can be tall and skinny or low and wide. I drill holes down through the centers and stack them on each other, creating modular stacks of multilayered columns. I integrate bowls, vases and plates into these structures. The pieces are stacked upside down or right side up, creating mirror images of multiple layers facing up and down. These structures remind me of buildings, towers and spires. They also make me think of wild flowers, vertebrae, and coral reefs building upon each other.

 

My texturing is derived from musical timing. I like to think of it as playing guitar on the surface of the clay. I comb the clay immediately after throwing the piece. Using different texturing tools and tempos I lay down layers of rhythmically timed patterns, creating wiggles and waves that cross over and under each other. The texture also makes me think of water rippling sand or an ancient text etched in stone.