artist's statement
I am a potter. My search is for emotion, feeling, content and form in objects meant to be experienced and used in the comfort home. I believe that ordinary domestic rituals can have a profound impact on the human condition. My work is intimately connected to our bodies through form and scale, food and nourishment. It is activated most when in use, when engaging the senses of touch, sight, sound, taste and smell. I wish for my work to inspire creative decisions in actions such as sipping a moment of tea, preparing a soup, or arranging two daffodils in spring. I imagine a cup remaining in use and active for centuries; yet, I am acutely aware that the intended context is transitory, where it can in one breath caress someone’s lips, and in the next be shattered by an accidental drop.
Memory, and my understanding of memory, are intimately connected to objects. A new cup enters my life and engages, becoming familiar, holding my attention as I trace its subtleties, the pace and rhythm of its handle, the weight and balance when full, the transferring of its heat to my touch, the way light passes through its contents. Through time and use, this cup acquires a patina of memories which changes my understanding and relationship with it. Holding it, steam rising from tea, the memories connected with the cup echo back, the long shadows of the sun rising one morning, a conversation with a passed friend, my youngest daughter taking her first step, marking moments in time which give life meaning and richness.
I often draw inspiration from details in nature, the form of the sky seen from a solitary hilltop, the tension in a peony blossom squeezing outward during a warm week in late spring. I find great satisfaction through hard, physical work and long hours in the studio. Repetition and rhythm in my process are how I search for subtleties in form, surface and pattern. I am fascinated by the potential for related elements to arrange and become something greater than a sum-total of parts. A series of soup bowls nesting together evokes an emerging flower, then transforms into a stage for breaking bread with loved ones, then circles back to a nest of bowls after they are washed, poised and alert for their next experience.