Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident 2010, (AIA) 2024
My work explores the tipping point between elegant and awkward, crude materiality and refined beauty within historical forms. The familiar object becomes the artifact, speaking of multiple histories and the nuanced and complex relationship we have with objects in our everyday lives.
I am interested in forms that provide both a utilitarian and ritualized experience. These forms provide an excellent format to explore the moment where an expected beauty becomes deconstructed, where familiar objects are reconsidered.
My work is thrown and altered, incorporating a variety of surface treatments. I use dark stoneware clays combined with atmospheric firing to provide a varied surface ground. The surfaces are cultivated using pattern and inlayed slips or imagery to build a layered visual and tactile experience. The pieces often undergo multiple post firings to create depth as well as a varied palette.