I am a functional and sculptural potter working primarily from the wheel with porcelain. With the clay and the wheel, I found peace and purpose after returning from the Gulf War. After years of practicing, studying my craft, my goal is to make something that will work well, last long, and hopefully enjoyed or even cherished.
I love the challenges of utilitarian ware. I believe making multiples or sets, builds my skills as a potter. I have a unique perspective of service ware. I spent over fifteen years as a chef in fine dining restaurants and prestigious country clubs. Service ware is important to dinning, elaborate banquets both for function, durability and enhancing presentation.
When you get to know my functional work, you can see two distinct finishes. One finish being more traditional with aqua blues and greens, gloss finishes, colors relating to my home, South Florida. The other more contemporary. The clay body sometimes visible, maybe scratched or nicked with smoky backgrounds, reminiscence of a battlefield. Furthermore, I use slips, matte, and satin-colored glazes, along with surface treatments consisting of incising, inlaying, stamping geometric shapes, and decals or brush work to finish my ware.
I have always been curious about the teapot. They are considered one of the most challenging and technically difficult pots to make. One needs to affectively make the elements of the teapot: the body, spout, lid, and handle. I am drawn to this challenge. One must also consider the volume it holds, the proportion of the elements to the body as-well as the balance, function, and placements of those elements. I’m fascinated with the management of clay during this process. I take pride in managing my clay, eagerly anticipating when the clay becomes leather hard so to attach the spout, pull the handle and trim the lid.
I am also curious about the form of a teapot as a sculpture. I want to engage the viewer and evoke curiosity by giving the teapot a whimsical gesture or suggest a mood. I do this by nontraditional placement and manipulation of the elements and with surface treatments, pictural marks in or on the clay and iconography. This opens the door to narratives and conceptual work.
As our country and world change due to social issues, political unrest, climate change, war, do my pots and sculptures. They are sometimes loud and in-your-face or quiet with subtle nuances. I’m hoping to relate to the viewer with contemporary issues, or playful whimsical gestures. Although I start with a plan the work is abstract and the idea develops during construction of the sculpture. However, the idea doesn’t outweigh design and craftsmanship.
I also enjoy making platters. They are the most physically demanding and technically challenging to make. My platters are functional and can easily hang on a wall. Plates and platters with their flat or concave surfaces have always appeared to me as a blank canvas. The surface can be presented to you to the viewer with no distractions or hurtles to overcome like sculptures. I recently completed an installation of 16 platters ranging from 14” to 18”. The show titled “Gathering”. In this case, I was trying to overwhelm the viewer with text, varying fonts, bold and or faded imagery with subjective and objective subject matter along with confrontational issues.
Much of my work has cityscapes on it. As a kid, and even today, I eagerly await cities with buildings peppering the horizon on road trips. I am fascinated with viewing them from a distance and how they change as one moves closer and through them. The cityscape reminds me of a sonogram, buildings shooting skyward measuring the beat and rhythm of the city. The somewhat controlled chaos of a city is bewildering and exciting to me. The extremes of mankind can be found in cities: the good, the bad, the holy and the evil.
You will find in my body of work a theme I call “Notes in Anthropomorphism”. I have been working and developing this theme on and off since 1995. It was also the title of my BFA in show in 2000. This abstract theme began in my first drawing class. The exercise, with a pencil continuously draw a line on a piece of paper until the instructor said stop. Then find something; I found something. First developing these abstracts with drawings then paintings, and ultimately in clay sculptures. They are bulbous, figurative objects having recognizable musical instrument elements. The sculptures consist of wheel thrown and altered pots along with hand-built elements. My objective is movement or a snapshot of a dance or march with a used or played look.
My influences began with Harris Deller and his architectural yet figurative sculptures, bold incised lines in porcelain, inlayed with rich black glaze. Tony Wright who taught me about kilns, how to fire them, studio operations, and his beautifully thrown forms. Michael Sherrill’s amazing palette and whimsical vases, teapots and sculptures fascinated me. And Peter Voulkos, a veteran who changed clay to contemporary art. A larger than life presents, I’ve read, with the ability to physically interact with his clay without limitations and undeniable confidence.
To conclude I take great pride in my finishes; I make all my own slips and glazes from raw material. This ability gives me a vast range of color opportunities. The color and application help create the mood, message, and ambience of my work. And recently, I have been experimenting with Photoshop to manipulate photos to create decals to help echo narratives, temper, and message.
