About the Pottery.
I work with porcelain clay, mostly on the potter's wheel, softly altered when freshly thrown, glazed when leather-hard, and fired to cone 10 in a soda kiln. I seek for fire and kiln atmosphere to decorate my pots ; I create surfaces and forms to be touched by flame. The sensual, tactile quality of clay is vital, and I want my pieces to feel as good to touch as they are useful and good looking. The pots look alive, a bit whimsical, and they’re intended to bring life, beauty, and years of enjoyment into the lives of those who use them.
About Working.
These days, I contemplate the relevance of living as a practicing artist with our planet facing extraordinary challenges. I imagine how the work of my hands and heart may be of benefit. Perhaps, working as a potter develops beneficial qualities: caring attention, commitment, honesty, courage, passion, hard work, love of beauty, and a willingness to get one’s hands dirty. Engaging daily in the primordial, mysterious act of creation with earth, water, fire, air, the essential raw materials of which we and the pots are made, links us with all earthly life.
Simple pottery, like cups, are made to hold and serve nourishment. Do consciously made pots carry some ineffable ability to transform and heal? What may be embedded in the stone of fired clay by the alchemical bond between material, process, and person. What is conveyed through use or enjoyment? I’m intending a reality where compassion arises in the heart when hand embraces handle.
Lately, with making candelabra, menorahs, candlesticks, I’ve become consumed with creating vehicles to spread light in our world.