| Ten years ago, I found myself, almost by accident, in a pottery workshop
outside of Nairobi, Kenya. I worked there for six months making plates
and mugs for the safari hotels. When I returned home, the first thing I
did was sign up for a ceramics class. I moved to New York and signed up
for another, and another. Then I moved to Provincetown, bought a kiln,
and started showing my work. Now I have a studio in Brooklyn. There are often long intervals when I don't have a place to work and so
I don't make work, but somehow when the need comes, a place appears, and
things get made. In the intervals, I look, and think about how I'll make
what I've looked at: flowers and drawings of flowers, animal claws,
Pokemon cards, and sometimes clouds. I'm a handbuilder, not a thrower. I use molds, many of them wooden bowls
scavenged from the Truro swap shack. From the molds come the bodies, and
then I add legs, and feet, and patterns, and color. Sometimes I think I
should invest my little guys with deep conceptual/political meaning, but
they smartly refuse. They seem to make people smile, and that's plenty
for me.
Short version: I'm a handbuilder, not a thrower. I use molds, many of them wooden bowls
scavenged from the Truro swap shack. From the molds come the bodies, and
then I add legs, and feet, and patterns, and color. My forms come from
flowers and drawings of flowers, animal claws, Pokemon cards, and
clouds. Sometimes I think I should invest my little guys with deep
conceptual/political meaning, but they smartly refuse. They seem to make
people smile, and that's plenty for me.
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