2023

My work follows the tradition of salt firing, in combination with the more contemporary process of soda firing, capitalizing on the unique color and surface variations that are a natural product of the process.

After enduring Covid and the chaos of the last two years, we all need a break, especially our guardian angels. I love exploring the interaction of the fly ash in an anagama kiln with porcelain slips, underglazes and shinos. It holds the promise of enlivening and enriching the surface of figurative work while at the same time running the risk of obliterating details. I'm alway striving for that mysterious balance.

Throughout 2021, thoughts of my garden kept my spirit buoyed while I was enduring surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments for breast cancer. I came to understand more deeply that all gardens periodically experience loss, bare spots and voids, rendering the lush colors, sweet smells and soft petals all the more profound. Each spring brings the hopeful promise of renewal. I tried to put all of that hope and some of the loss I felt into this piece.

This hand built work utilizes glazed surfaces, but emphasizes an organically contoured raw sand-colored clay body. I’m working with both closed shapes and open volumes hollowed out through subtraction. Flutes and ribs increasingly come to define the form of the work. Nature always inspires me, as does the sky and the weather.

In my work, I transform clay into conceptual objects that fluctuate between abstract and form. I share my internal reflection and personal insights and their significance on the individual and the reciprocity with society and culture. I utilize the ancient Hellenistic technique of painting and covering with terra sigillata. Natural samples of earth gathered around the world, are the source of the multicolored palette.

These boats are carrying the words of Matthew Arnold's poem "To Marguerite", one stanza to each small boat. The poem describes the isolation felt by human beings who "surely, once, they feel, were parts of a single continent", but are now islands divided from each other by an "unplumbed, salt, estranging sea". The boats derive from a number of poem boats I have made, carrying various texts. Here each travels alone through the sea that divides them.

I make choices that stand in for emotional states, figuratively and materially - via marks from atmospheric firings, surfaces that reflect organic qualities, and textures that reference natural processes. My intent is for one to imagine the atmosphere around the figure as a reflection of what is happening inside the body and mind.

The local wildlife comes out at night in areas near the city. They are rarely seen but all around us. These creatures inhabit a seldom used park in Dorchester.

Most of my work is functional. I like the idea of people using what I make. This vase was made and fired at Starworks in North Carolina, where I was able to use the heavily grogged sculpture clay they produce. It fired well in the clay program's three-chamber noborigama kiln. I'm hoping it will hold spring flowers..

I started working with clay again in 2001 after earning an MFA in drawing and painting. Now I find myself coming full circle in the Painting with Smoke series. Planned simplicity and serendipity play equal parts in the creation of these works.