2025 Workshop Series

All my life, I have struggled with writing; now, my work is completely covered in the text. This paradigm shift has allowed me to experiment with different art forms and face fears through the medium of art. An interesting adventure in self-discovery! The text in my pieces acts on several levels. For instance, it has texture, pattern, mystery, and a path to look inward to decipher a glimpse into my private thoughts. I am fascinated by the rhythmic qualities created by color, texture, and patterns. Decoration and the act of decorating are essential because it celebrates and enhances form and speaks purely of aesthetics. I use pottery as a vehicle to explore decoration and other formal questions. It allows me to investigate form, space, and image. My greatest satisfaction comes from thoroughly filling surfaces with color and finely detailed decoration in a spirit that I feel is playful and whimsical. My attempt is to make the environment an expressive participant and to address the importance of aesthetics in our daily lives.

My work reflects the experiences I have had in my life that depict the human condition and are often painful, and uncomfortable. I try to use humor to draw the viewer into the work. I find that using these opposites is an effective way to get a message across. I use anthropomorphic figures as the vehicle to explore the emotions that we all experience in our own humanity. I reference art history, contemporary culture, religion, mythology, and other forms of social determinism in non-traditional ways to engage my subjects in activities that confront the viewer with the experiences of our own fallibility. To accentuate the narrative, I use various surface treatments to emphasize different aspects of the work. Along with a minimal use of colorful glazes and stains, I use a surface technique that I developed known as "Naked Fauxku". This approach reproduces a likeness to Naked Raku but is created in a high-fire, oxygenated atmosphere with no reduction. The advantage of this technique is that it creates a cracked and painful-looking surface that adds subliminal meaning to the work, while technically imparting it with a durability that is unattainable from un-vitrified raku work.