About my approach:  On my first day of HS ceramics class in Gahanna, Ohio, waaay back in 1985, my teacher, Mr. Smith, was throwing for us and said, “Because people all over the world learned pottery through the oral tradition, anything you learn is not yours to keep, it is yours to share.” And just like that, I was thrown a lifeline that I didn't know I so desperately needed. I meandered but never left it.

Pottery can be a conduit that helps us connect to our geological and historical past, food, each other, the moment, the earth, and the universe. 

Perceived through the senses, a pot can provoke a feeling that can be difficult to describe, perhaps because an empty pot holds an invisible potential.  As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in  The Little Prince, "What is essential is invisible to the eye."  Pottery is felt and experienced when life happens, in use, with people, and alone. The experience can grow and change over time.

Functional pots can become vessels for memory. For example, a large bowl that served something delicious during a memorable dinner party later becomes tied to that meaningful experience. A cradled mug that has helped someone find a moment of pause when they needed it then becomes a welcomed reminder to pause. In that way, a pot becomes animated, developing its own life. If a beloved pot breaks through use, it is comforting to know it served its function and lived a good life. 

Fire brings an element of the unknown to clay. Each firing involves a complex interaction between the claybody, glaze layers, time, temperature, and atmosphere (and the kiln dogs/gods).  

Clouds and rain are metaphors for the joy found inside of tears. 

It is an endless cycle of searching for the invisible space between internal/external, emptiness/fullness, inhale/exhale, oxidation/reduction, joy/sorrow, and function/experience.