Delightful works of art designed for specific edibles for everyday use - this Japanese approach to dinnerware, and the food it serves, is what inspired me to make my own. I took many trips to Japan as I was growing up and learned to appreciate this relationship between art and function. My desire to speak the language of my own family resulted in a degree in East Asian Languages at Indiana University, and I was working as a Japanese translator/interpreter when I took my first pottery class at the Indianapolis Art Center. This combination of passions, inspirations and situations has led me to the professional, full-time pottery career that now centers my life.
My stoneware pieces are reduction fired to cone 10, or 2340° F, in a natural gas kiln, and evoke a pure, uncomplicated, sensitive aesthetic. I balance this controlled, precise style with Raku. Raku, with its roots in Japanese tradition, is a firing technique that produces never-to-be-repeated bursts of iridescent color and crackle patterns on its glazed surfaces. It is quick, hands-on, and spontaneous. The rhythm I create when doing raku firings is like a dance and the results are dependent on my every move. Most of my stoneware and raku pieces are made on the potter’s wheel. I often decorate my pieces with kanji, or Chinese characters, using a traditional Japanese calligraphy brush which allows me to express myself through a beautiful written language that is part of my own culture.
I moved to New Mexico in 1999 and, after 4 years in Santa Fe, now live in Dixon, a small rural farming village rich with its community of artistic spirits. My studio is a small adobe house nestled in the hills at the edge of high desert wilderness where I enjoy quiet, peace and simplicity.
My raku appears in 500 Raku: Bold Explorations of a Dynamic Ceramics Technique, a gallery book by Lark Crafts.
