Portfolio of Works

This ancient process of firing in a pit in the ground is an unpredictable art!  Each pot is patterned uniquely by smoke and fumes created by minerals and organic substances added to the flames -- paper, sawdust, copper, iron, seaweed, banana peels, coffee grounds, corn husks, and many other items that cause chemical reactions in the fire.

The term "sgraffito" is used for various approaches of cutting decoration into clay.  I paint a coat of a contrasting color of slip (watered-down clay) onto a pot when it's not fully dry, then I carefully carve a design through the slip to reveal the color of the pot beneath.  The visual effect is much like that of woodblock printing.

Since 1970, human actions have caused North America to lose a shocking 3 billion birds!  90% are from our most familiar species - sparrows, finches, warblers, blackbirds.  70 at-risk species have lost 50% of their breeding populations and will lose another 50% in the next 50 years without major conservation efforts.  To do what I can "on the home front," I provide local birds with food, water, nesting boxes, and native-plant habitat for wild food and shelter.  They reward me with close-up beauty I can capture in my art.

I've always been a wanderer, needing and loving nature, finding byways and ways not charted at all.  Forests, mountains, valleys, oceans, rivers, gurgling creeks.  And because I always need nature near me, as I wander I tuck bits of it in my pockets to bring home.  The treasures fill my home, and inevitably find their way into my creations.

My life began on a little farm, with milk cows and chickens, barn cats and a garden, in a little hamlet of 300 residents (counting those on the surrounding farms).  I loved that little world.  It's with a sense of loss that I've watched that settlement grow to a population more than 100 times larger, the farms paved over for highways, shopping malls, industrial complexes, and housing developments.  I treasure and celebrate the few old wooden barns that still stand, wherever I find them, and the small family farms still growing beautiful, abundant food.