Stoneflower Pottery

Artist's Statement

I've been a professional potter, working in stoneware and porcelain for over thirty years. Pottery for me is a way of merging art with our daily lives - combining the satisfaction of designing functional pieces that really work well with the creation of objects that are both visually and tactilely satisfying. As a medium, clay offers so many possibilities for exploration - each different state - plastic, leather hard, glazed surface, offers different possibilities - to shape or carve or paint, the chemistry of glazes, the pyromania of firing. In the process of making, in repeating form and learning technique, I've found myself performing a search for beauty in much the same way as a musician or dancer learns with practice over time to perfect a sequence of gestures that capture an essence of movement in space and time.


Recently I've begun to explore a variety of media to try to achieve a deeper understanding of landscape, nature. The creation of a finished object is different from the act of observation involved in art. Each when it's successful can capture a new understanding of connectedness and offer others the chance to share the experience and an insight you have reached. But for me painting, drawing or photography are more than the creation of an object. They offer me a way to observe the infinite variations within each moment in time, as each day brings new delight in the beauty of our world. This slowed observation allows us to discover and connect to more and more of the complex patterns and relationships we are only part of. Each different medium offers new tools to translate that experience and in translating understand better. We make so many assumptions about what we see, retreat from direct observation, and those assumptions can lead us seriously astray, to our peril. Now more than ever, in the face of devastating climate change we need to move more slowly - be connected to our world and understand our place within it.


Making pottery, I can recognize that a certain kind of dish would be useful and design it - ie small pie dishes and casseroles for use in the microwave or toaster oven let students or singles make individual desserts or meals - saving electricity and making it possible to modify a recipe everyone else is eating to make an individual portion to fit a specialized diet. Or I can make a mug that really works.

I've felt a need to explore the world on a smaller scale - too often our society expects to be overwhelmed by size - becoming ever more demanding of our environment and the space we take up on the planet. We need to rethink our relationship to objects and the way we use materials. Working in a smaller scale you become aware of different properties of materials, and the intimate relationship you can have with an object you can hold in your hand, not just view at a distance.