Artist Statement—Sculpture and Functional Work

Both my sculptural artwork and functional pottery take advantage of the versatile nature of clay as an infinitely expressive art material.

The idea behind my functional work lies in the desire to create objects for everyday use that impart a feeling of sensuousness, surprise, and pleasure. My pottery references an interest in creating an expansive volume along with an awareness of contrasting line quality in thrown and decorated areas. In much of my work I want to show my hand in the process of making and use glaze and surface texture as an invitation for visual interest and tactile enjoyment.

My sculptural artwork reflects my interest in creating contained space. I want to make sculptures that suggest a number of associations but not necessarily to any one thing in particular. My references include architectural space with respect to inside/outside and revealing and concealing; furniture such as ottomans or plush chairs; household objects such as toasters, tea cozies, wicker baskets and plastic bags. I look for ways to exploit the material fact of clay—by warping, cracking, glaze drips and layering of colors, to bring about further implications of age, distress and past or future use.

Artist Statement—Stretched Vessels

These pieces come from an interest in trying to activate space in some kind of simple, graceful way. A.S. These pieces are thrown on the potters wheel and altered. The skin of each piece uses contrasting surface color to imply a fixed point or visual anchor, like the sewed on toe area of a sock or a patch on an elbow of a jacket. I am interested in creating volumes that billow and yet remain taut. I likened these forms to large bags of water caught in a moment in time.

Artist Statement—Tea Bowls

I really enjoy making tea bowls. I like them to be done with a sense of care-lessness and care-fulness. At times tight and at others, loose. I throw them on the potter's wheel as a way to warm up, to cool down, to be not mindful and yet mindful of what I am doing. I like to work with this known format and icon, and see what happens....look for small surprises in thickness, weight, proportion, gesture, mood.....I can always crash them or save them to look at later.

The tea bowl form is the remnant of a moment in the studio.

My artwork is primarily ceramic sculpture and traditional utilitarian forms. I have been largely interested in ideas that are associated with containment, structure and the associative nature of objects. My intent is to make engaging shapes that have multiple references to objects or phenomena in the real world.