About the Art

I love to make pottery using both the potter's wheel and traditional hand building techniques. While wheel throwing, I tend to make large but clean, minimalist, modern shapes. Hand building makes it possible to create any form I want beyond just the circular shapes created on the wheel, and really allows me to dive into that "perfectly imperfect" look that comes from making a form completely by hand. I use a variety of surface decoration skills, such as carving, inlay, and wax resist, but typically prefer a just a simple yet colorful glaze to finish off the eclectic handmade vibe.

All of my pottery starts as a wet block of clay, and is shaped either by hand or on the potter's wheel. The wet clay is allowed to slowly dry before the first kiln fire, called the bisque fire, which fires the clay to just under 1900 degrees F. This hardens the clay and allows it to keep its shape, while remaining porous enough to accept the ceramic glaze. Once dipped or brushed with raw glaze, the pottery is fired a second time in the kiln, this time to just under 2200 degrees F! This is where the clay is fully hardened and the glaze melts into a smooth, glassy surface. Different surface decorating methods can be incorporated before or after the bisque fire. The entire process for each piece of pottery takes at least 3-4 weeks from start to finish, and requires a lot of skill, detail work, and most of all patience!