The very first ceramic thing I ever made was in third grade. We were supposed to make a pinch pot and my “pinchee” turned itself into a little sombrero hat. It was the hit of the whole project. I just lost control of a silly pinch pot and instead of throwing it away, I let it make itself into what ever it felt like being. Ahh, to be young and just let things get just out of reach then to reel them back in at the last minute. This appears to be the great game of life. Sometimes we have great success and others are complete disasters. Be it love, our career or art; all are our trials and our gains or losses.

I grew up in the Santa Cruz mountains. I was surrounded by an artful community and encouraged from a very young age to pursue my affinity for the creative. I attended arty summer camps and concocted what I could with whatever I could whenever I could, more often than not at the expense of my parents. I can confidently say that my experimentation creating goo out of the kitchen cabinet contents has had a great part in the artist that I am today.

I did not return to ceramics until my fourth year of college. I had one class in high school. It was far too rigid for me and did not entice me at the time, though I did enjoy myself. I left Santa Cruz after my first year of community college and moved to Seattle for Art School. In 1994 I graduated with my Applied Arts in Commercial Photography from the Art Institute of Seattle (AIS). I found myself with an education, no practical experience and no capital in a very competitive town. I felt I needed more to stand on, so I returned to California. To further my education I enrolled at College of the Redwoods. After a year of the grind classes, I rediscovered ceramics.

I continued my education further at Humboldt State University (HSU). There I studied Ceramics as well as Drawing, Painting, and Lithography. I continued through the advanced levels in all subjects struggling to decide which was truely right for me. Eventually, I found myself spending more and more time in the ceramics lab. I felt most comfortable there and enjoyed the attention to form and structure a refreshing change from other more nebulous critique styles.

Time can create the most amazing things. Before long, I began to push my own ceramic boundaries and started to draw on my forms. Then I started to carve them, creating more depth. My throwing skills at this point were minimal at best. I had spent the better part of my ceramic business hand-building and throwing was for cups and bowls. I felt hemmed in by the size of my own throwing capabilities, so I employed a classmate with exceptional throwing skills to create forms large enough for me to use as a canvas. He taught me how to throw greater amounts of clay and now I can throw large enough vessels of my own to draw and carve my imagery on.