the first two images are links that will take you to my picasa albums:
samples of my workrecent & current work samples of tilestiles



A little about my work:

- a swirly mug.
Most of my work is functional, and fired in reduction to cone 10. As a teaching potter, I love to experiment with forms and also with glazing, but most of 'my' work is done within a specific palette of glazes that I find extremely versatile and predictably unpredictable from kiln to kiln. This mug is a good example - the glaze combination is the same as the mugs pictured above, but the thickness of the cover glaze can give a whole new dimension to the way the piece comes out of the kiln. This mug also shows wax resist brush work, which you'll see on a lot of my work. The pieces gives both visual textures - within the swirls and the depth of iron spotting in the cover glaze, and then tactile textures as you hold the piece and feel the difference in thickness of the glaze where the wax was brushed.

- coneflowers with rutile wash. platter is dark brown stoneware with white slip on interior.
a shino glaze was sprayed on top of the brushwork.
This is an example of playing within my own boundaries. The coneflower design, with a rutile/tin/copper wash on the petals and under a sprayed layer of shino glaze, is one I use on other clays. It's fun to see something familiar in a new light. The cut rim plate and platter are a new direction for me, but one I'm becoming more enamoured with each time I take the wire to the rim. In this example, I had the chance to reclaim a bag of a dark brown stoneware (a clay body I worked with years ago in the DC studio), and although fired in a reduction kiln, this toasty warm platter has the qualities of a woodfire kiln. I may have to get some more of this clay!


- stoneware plate with coneflower brushwork and wax resist between layers of shino glazes.
This is my more 'traditional' use of the same glazes, but with wax resist on the petals to bring out the color of the base shino. Always nice to add a little treat for the dishwasher on the back!

Platter in the 'Dancing Brush' series, wax resist between glaze layers
The 'Dancing Brush' series was part happy accident and part leap of faith, as so many good things are that come out of the kiln. This decoration is starting to find it's way onto the cut rim platters and small plates.

'Small Plate' series, cut rim with abstract tree/leaf design
The 'small plate' series came out of a commission, and while the tree motif had already started to evolve out of the 'dancing brush' series, it also suited the commission needs perfectly. I continue to make small, cut rim plates, and each of the decorating techniques you see here can be found on the small plates.

-doodlepot keepsake: wheel thrown stoneware, carved, iron wash only on exterior.
My doodlepot series evolved from me looking for graphics and images to use to try out a technique I saw in clay books and magazines. The doodlepot usually offers up what one friend affectionately calls 'hippie imagery', which isn't far from true. As a child of the 70's, I covered pages and pages of notebooks (and some texts) with big, puffy letters spelling out peace and love, adding peace signs, flowers, rainbows and doves. To make sure my point was clear, I would outline each image and then radiate that outline until each intersected with the others. I was way into creative visualization and the law of attraction before they showed up on the bookshelf! And because I'm not much of a literal artist, this was a safe, comfortable image I could work with in testing out carving, slip inlay and other techniques - and it helps that the message still rings true for me. And much to my delight, these pots resonate with others! I haven't started a new series of doodlepots since I opened my studio, as the time involved in making them doesn't quite fit into the balance of teaching and filling commissions, but a new series is in the works for the summer of '09!