I make ceramic sculptures as cultural devices for meaning-making, specifically focusing on themes of ecology and spiritual inquiry. Working from my studio amidst coastal redwood forest, my practice privileges the aesthetics of locality while nurturing intentional processes and a deep connection to place. Sometimes this is through the use of wild clays and other foraged materials, or in the interpretation of direct encounters with animals, plants and elemental forces.
Through an accumulation of gestures, I make rhythmically patterned sculptures that reference the human body in both form and scale. Fingermarks in clay are intentionally accentuated by repeating the motion until they take shape into familiar images: a pelvic bone, a bird’s beak, a spiral shell. In this way, the marks of my hands begin to echo the beings and objects that surround me. The resulting patterns appear organically, reflecting inherent interconnection and a universal language of form.
Often engaging my works in ritual use and performance, I seek to capture mysterious and sensorial ephemera such as the sound of water dripping into a cavernous vessel or recording the passage of time with sand through a ceramic funnel. Inspired by my reverence for the natural world, I invite viewers to be curious and open to sacred encounters with the unknown.