Stealing Shapes

Most of my formal influences come from outside the medium of ceramics. Twentieth century art and design movements like Dada, Constructivism and the Bauhaus have all had a big impact on how I think about the creative process. For me making pottery is similar to making collages, but instead of magazine clippings or photographs or bathroom fixtures I construct pots out of universal formal components—line, volume, texture, color, pattern—all of which can be assembled in infinite variations.

My work can be taken at face value—functional pots that are well designed and beautiful, meant to be handled and used. Thematically I am interested in the tension between the natural and the built environments. I am conscious that the pottery wheel is a machine and I use it to shape forms that reflect my fascination with that which is (or was) modern, mechanical and industrial. I decorate my surfaces with traditional images that reflect my fascination with that which is wild, unpredictable and natural. I am particularly fond of old, anonymous engravings of rabbits, foxes, coyotes, crows—images that are generic but carry symbolic weight as they represent animals which appear in folk tales and fables around the world.