ABOUT THE ARTIST:
I have been working with clay for 25 years. The first time I sat down at the potter’s wheel, something clicked into place and I knew I wanted to follow that path as far as I could. It has been a fascinating road that has taken me around the world, with clay being a central focus. I now make my home in Holualoa, Hawaii where I draw from the raw beauty of this place for inspiration in my work. My mission as a potter is to quietly enrich people’s lives by providing beautiful and compelling functional art that finds a place in their daily rituals.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
My grandfather was a scientist by profession and a serious potter on the side. His ceramic work was purely for the joy of it, and I think he balanced his demanding career with the sheer love of the materiality of clay. His work was graceful and refined, with clean lines and a quiet beauty, his Scandinavian roots coming through in a style with echoes of Danish Modern. Though I didn’t know him when he was alive, we had his pots around us in our home when I was growing up, and I remember the way they felt in my hands, treasures from the past. Every aspect was resolved, each detail finished with care and attention, and when I picked up a cup the lip and the foot were always just right, never a sharp edge or a thick heaviness, just a perfectly balanced and divinely functional object that I understood and loved. As a potter of 25 years now, when I look at my grandfather’s work I appreciate how talented he was, and how many of his pieces must have ended up in the shard pile because of a crack or a slight disproportion, leaving behind only the successful ones. As a child, this information seeped into my understanding in a visceral way.
A truly well-made cup has the power to affect your whole day. It may be the first thing you pay attention to as you start your morning, and having it be just right for your morning cup of coffee draws the focus to that ritual, like a gift to yourself as you transition into a new day. Using hand made art that has soul in our daily lives is good for us. In American culture there has been a great emphasis put on differentiating art from craft, conceptual work from functional. In Asian cultures and other world traditions that are more ancient, this value placement is reversed, and the presence of these objects in our daily lives is treasured. I relate more to this perspective, and see the potential for expression as every bit as powerful in work that has an active place in our life as it does in work that hangs on the wall.
I have also taught ceramics throughout my career with clay, and the materiality of the medium makes it accessible to people of all ages and abilities. Clay just feels good in the hands; there is something ancient and fundamentally human about forming it into shapes. There is potential for healing in the therapeutic nature of creativity, and clay can help us access that nature directly. It’s important to me to help people find that potential.