I am pulled, as if by gravity, to investigate the patterns and shapes in nature.
I noticed the intricacy of the leaf’s vein long before I put my hands into clay.
Touching the detail, I traced the line from leaf tip back to stem and watched the color grow from root to bud. I capture these textures of petals, feathers, fossils and seeds in soft clay slabs – then piece the slabs together like a patchwork quilt.
My hands are drawn by the physical nature of clay – earth itself, with its capacity to preserve the scales of a lizard skin as well as the fragile edge of a bluebonnet flower. Clay is fluid and flexible. Slowly building with colored and impressed clay, my textured slabs become the walls of a landscape vase. Your eye is drawn around the path in a winding climb towards the cliff top – an aerial view at sunset.
I enjoy collaboration with collectors and have made vases, memorials, funerary urns, blessing bowls, sculptures and a Beehive shaped samovar- perfect for water, wedding wine, or a fancy lemonade stand.
It is the spirit of the earth, the inherent grace in all things that grow, which inspires me to make these pieces, in this way. I want my work to have the vitality of a freshly picked bunch of wildflowers and the timelessness of a fossil.
