ceramic sculpture

My ceramic sculpture is symbolic of a collective memory of what I feel about the experience of place, our environment and how it all overlaps and connects. 

I began this journey almost 20 years ago while working as the marketing director for an architectural firm in Portland, OR. I wanted an escape from technology and marketing, which I found at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. I chose clay as my medium. It is earthbound. It has a memory and is flexible and unforgiving at the same time. While living in Portland, I sought the rugged beauty of the Pacific coast. It’s vast horizon and unbroken wind. The similarities to the Kansas prairie are not lost on me. Our big, boundless sky and wind that blows the grasslands into waves of color and texture.

My inspiration for form, texture and color comes from my daily walks, car drives that offer passing snapshots and the written words of authors such as Craig Childs and Annie Dillard. In my work, I create a dialogue of pieces and parts I’ve mentally collected or photographed. I work heart to hand, embracing imperfections.  I keep multiple sketchbooks and build my work using coil and slab methods. I use very little glaze. I strive to create visceral surfaces.

The touchable quality of my work is achieved through carving and gouging the surface, hand burnishing terra sigillata on to unfired clay, and adding layers of pattern combined with stains, oxides, slips and multiple firings.