Artist Statement

As I create with clay, I draw upon the history of the medium.  I connect with the earth and the stories it has witnessed.  Clay speaks of birth, life and death and yet simultaneously of immortality, as flame transforms earth.  And while connecting to this past, I try to combine these stories of distant times: cultures, storms, function, and aesthetic with issues of the present.  Through form, surface, and symbols, I draw from imagery reaching back in time to address issues like gender equality and the emptiness in modern society. I encourage everyone, myself included, to delve deep into ourselves and  those around us, that we might ask what we hold in the vessels that are our selves, and in how we relate to other selves around us.  I also find inspiration in my history and my natural surroundings; a habitat that I am constantly trying to expand. In this process, I am circled back to my own childhood through the eyes of my children. These themes are not new; looping around in the spiral of life, looping into my work as an artist.