Artist Statement
My work speaks of the relationship between the growth that occurs in nature, and the growth that I experience in my own life. Just as mother nature pieces together leaves on a plant to create a larger organism, so too do I piece together smaller slip-cast elements to create a larger whole. The simplified geometric shapes found in my work mirror the shapes of leaves found in nature, reflecting the beautiful geometry of nature. These thoughtful pieces create a ceramic garden where one can relax and contemplate the relationship between what nature creates and what man creates. The latest innovation in this process combines large, rough stoneware pieces with the delicate porcelain sculptures, creating a tension that reflects the challenges I’ve faced in my own life during a time of intense personal change.
One of the most common adjectives that people use to describe my work is organic. While my shapes are directly inspired from nature, I am always amazed at how much MATH I use while creating my work. From guesstimating volumes of plaster needed for molds to calculating modifications on glaze recipes, I find myself reaching for my calculator far more often than you might think while in the studio. This realization led me to contemplate the relationship between man, nature and the language of mathematics that is used to describe everything in the universe. When I began working on the designs for the geometry series, I looked at the geometric shapes of succulent leaves and how mother nature had joined those shapes together. I then began carving shapes of various sizes out of plaster inspired by those succulent leaves and then used those plaster models to create plaster molds for slip casting. These molds allow me to create multiples of those leaf shapes in clay which I then join together in ways reminiscent of what mother nature does, but in my own manner. The results range in style from organic to crystalline to plant like.
After focusing almost exclusively on learning and refining mold making and slip casting techniques, I have recently begun incorporating slab building techniques with these slip cast forms. A couple of years ago I began tracing geometric inspired lines on paper and using them either as drawings or as decals for my functional ceramic work. The large stoneware sculptures I have been creating come directly from these drawings. My previous slab-built work was always carefully planned out using paper templates. These new pieces have been sculpted more freely, similar to how I would draw my shapes, each section a direct response to the sections build before it. This more spontaneous manner of creating stands in direct opposition to the intense planning and forethought that is necessary in mold making.
For years I spent my creative energies creating large seed or pod shaped objects that spoke of the potential of growth found in a seed or a pregnant belly. During graduate school, these pieces morphed into the succulent leaf inspired shapes that you see today, as if the seeds had sprouted and grown into fully formed plants. This change reflected my growth as an artist, gaining confidence and growing into myself. The most recent evolution of my work was spurred on by the experience of having my twenty-year marriage fall apart less than a year from the completion of my MFA. As I tried to get my bearings after my life's foundation crumbled to dust, I found that I needed to create a new foundation based not upon my spouse but drawn from my own inner strength. This quest manifested itself physically in my work through these large, bold sculptures upon which rested the delicate forms that I had begun making a year earlier. I find it interesting that my boldest, strongest, largest work to date was created during a time when I have felt the most vulnerable and weak in my life.
One of the most common adjectives that people use to describe my work is organic. While my shapes are directly inspired from nature, I am always amazed at how much MATH I use while creating my work. From guesstimating volumes of plaster needed for molds to calculating modifications on glaze recipes, I find myself reaching for my calculator far more often than you might think while in the studio. This realization led me to contemplate the relationship between man, nature and the language of mathematics that is used to describe everything in the universe. When I began working on the designs for the geometry series, I looked at the geometric shapes of succulent leaves and how mother nature had joined those shapes together. I then began carving shapes of various sizes out of plaster inspired by those succulent leaves and then used those plaster models to create plaster molds for slip casting. These molds allow me to create multiples of those leaf shapes in clay which I then join together in ways reminiscent of what mother nature does, but in my own manner. The results range in style from organic to crystalline to plant like.
After focusing almost exclusively on learning and refining mold making and slip casting techniques, I have recently begun incorporating slab building techniques with these slip cast forms. A couple of years ago I began tracing geometric inspired lines on paper and using them either as drawings or as decals for my functional ceramic work. The large stoneware sculptures I have been creating come directly from these drawings. My previous slab-built work was always carefully planned out using paper templates. These new pieces have been sculpted more freely, similar to how I would draw my shapes, each section a direct response to the sections build before it. This more spontaneous manner of creating stands in direct opposition to the intense planning and forethought that is necessary in mold making.
For years I spent my creative energies creating large seed or pod shaped objects that spoke of the potential of growth found in a seed or a pregnant belly. During graduate school, these pieces morphed into the succulent leaf inspired shapes that you see today, as if the seeds had sprouted and grown into fully formed plants. This change reflected my growth as an artist, gaining confidence and growing into myself. The most recent evolution of my work was spurred on by the experience of having my twenty-year marriage fall apart less than a year from the completion of my MFA. As I tried to get my bearings after my life's foundation crumbled to dust, I found that I needed to create a new foundation based not upon my spouse but drawn from my own inner strength. This quest manifested itself physically in my work through these large, bold sculptures upon which rested the delicate forms that I had begun making a year earlier. I find it interesting that my boldest, strongest, largest work to date was created during a time when I have felt the most vulnerable and weak in my life.