Raku Ceramics – Vessels

My clay work began in high school and has stayed with me as a faithful and productive tool for expression. Enamored by the meditative physicality of pot-making and love for the Raku firing process, I have continued with the vessel clay form over decades.

With an adopted Asian aesthetic combined with the coiling and paddling techniques influenced by the Pueblo cultures of our western region, my hand-built ceramic vessels are mostly Raku fired, one-of-a-kind pieces, focused on the dynamic contrast of black & white in the glaze crackle against smoked calligraphy. Floating black calligraphy marks against the glazed surface creates a harmony of opposing elements: black against white; unglazed positive form against glazed negative space; metal harshness and tarnish against the warm, smoky luster of a fired glaze.

With metal working skills learned in my father’s tin shop as a teenager and derived from my jewelry work, I incorporate reclaimed metal into my clay forms spawning an exciting and exquisite visual element that I have been exploring for years.

Raku Ceramics – Masks

Fascinated with the extraordinary beauty and infinite variations of the human face, I create variations on an ancient visual archetype – the mask – an object used through history to mimic, conceal and enhance our most expressive feature. As expressions of the self, the Sacred and human aspiration, masks beg the viewer to suspend reality and channel the shared human experience.

Each mask is one-of-a-kind, using a stoneware clay with plasticity and texture close to human skin. Form is fashioned from a slab stretched & worked from beneath, supported by paper until firm enough to draw on and refine. Raku fired after an initial bisque in a kiln with fired color and patina derived from only washes of copper carbonate and red iron oxide or applied glaze. Addition of colored pencil and other mixed media create the final character of each mask piece.