• Functional

    My purpose in making pottery is to create ultimately functional, utilitarian ware.
    It is work to be used comfortably and easily, all the while maintaining a sense of movement, posture, and play that I feel is as necessary as the function itself. This sense of play emerges as I move and shape the clay, and through the loosely drawn polka dots and stripes that I quickly render in glaze.

    I am fascinated with the wood and soda kilns’ glorious variables and the way they react to the undulating surfaces of my work and its applied slips or glazes. These atmospheric phenomena enhance the organic nature of my work.

  • Sculpture

    I think I heard somebody somewhere say, "Humor is the best way to get anyone to understand anything" …or something like that. With that in mind, my sculpture confronts the gallery/museum space, as well as other odd human phenomena.

    Where the human form is concerned, I use the figure to serve as a personal proxy. I can use it to explore any type of emotion, from deep emotions to just plain silliness. I believe the life-sized human form, even if it is completely non-descript and covered in a jelly-bean-like surface, is one of the easiest ways to connect to the audience.

    I have more recently preferred to use and alter ready-made-type objects for their inherent loaded meanings. While my area of expertise is ceramics, I choose to have a very loose visual aesthetic and no particular medium of preference--I constantly change media and use what I believe is most appropriate for each piece.