P is for Pottery
I grew up in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on Lake Superior where I spent much my time enjoying the great outdoors and exploring the fresh water shores. From early on, I worked in customer service roles and persevered through college working at least two side jobs which taught me a lot. Working in the medical field directly with patients, some who were very ill, was rewarding and shaped who I am today. When I moved to Virginia Beach in 2010, I cried the first time I saw dolphins just offshore.
In 2015, I signed up for my first pottery class and was hooked on the deep dive into hands-on creation of items that can be used every day. I became obsessed, often waking up in the night thinking about how to adjust the position of my hands to change the shape of a pot or how I could utilize some miscellaneous thing in my junk drawer as a tool. A lot of time was spent online scouring articles, social media, and videos for answers. The slab- building style of my pottery came out of the pandemic. I had gotten a kiln but not a wheel and I loved the wheel. It was a creative struggle because it was not what I wanted to do with clay. But my relentless research found some inspiration and it has been flooding out of me since.
My work is slab-built. Each slab is rolled by hand, textured with my hand carved clay stamps and then built into functional pieces. While I invent many designs, I find the organized tessellation most comforting—each line, indentation, swell and shape. The functionality is important to me because then it is a part of all the senses, especially the texture, and has an intended use.