I first saw the magic of clay when I was seventeen and watched someone throw a pot on a wheel. How a lump of clay, turned around on a wheel becomes a form was mystifying. Although it was a few years before I had the chance to work with clay myself, a love affair began that has continued and deepened.

Clay has a life of its own and as a potter, I love to interact with the clay’s vitality. The process of throwing, forming a pot on the wheel, completely engages me. I love the challenges of continually trying to refine forms. What I strive for in my work, is to create pots that maintain a sense of the process in the finished pieces. To achieve that organic quality, I have layered glazes on some pieces, painted and experimented with altering and carving forms. My pots are meant to be used and to enhance daily life – hopefully tableware makes a meal more of a celebration and vases hold and display flowers in a unique way.

A fellow potter presented me with a challenge to describe my work in five adjectives and this helped me to focus on and articulate on my goals in my work. The first and most basic is functional. All of my work is meant to serve a function and to be used. The next is instinctive. My work comes from within me in an instinctive, non-cerebral way. It is not that I don’t think about them but the process is very basic and essential to who I am. My pots are also organic- they relate to natural patterns and biologic rhythms. My surfaces are not graphic but rather I derive my inspirations from patterns and forms in nature – the designs the tide makes in the sand, the bark of a tree, the colors of a sunset, the shape of a gourd – these rhythms can be found in my pots and decorations should seem to grow from the form. They are also exuberant, full of joyous enthusiasm to reflect the joy and unreserved energy I feel in making them. And finally, they are audacious- I fearlessly take chances in making my pottery and I hope they reflect that verve and originality.