As an author and mixed media artist, I am often somewhere between inertia and deadline. However, performing as a clay artist teaches me patience. Creativity requires slowing to the pace of life. Creative inspiration has pervaded my life since childhood, when my talented mother and aunt took me under their wings with ceramics and painting, fiber arts, metals, and woodworking taught to adult extension members. I also garden and create dollhouse miniatures for decorating. With increasing frequency, friends who are artisans are designing specialized courses with my projects in mind. As a result, I try to integrate several techniques when time allows.

Initially I returned to high-fire clay art to reinvent handmade, quick-firing clay ornaments into porcelain, and to personify story characters to illustrate my writing. This journey began decades ago while studying ceramics to balance life and career with college. Later, after a European folk arts study, my career escalated and evaporated free time, so I set clay aside to concentrate on work travel commitments. Finally, an early retirement finds me amid creative revival. Studio membership provides a motivating opportunity for growth among talented artists, where I often create functional and figurative art.

I love sharing exploration. Different clay techniques and firing methods can yield ‘special effects’ as surprising as those of various paints in their palette. Moreover, working with clay can be a Zen experience; it gives an almost meditative connection with whatever functional form reveals itself within a fistful of earth. My own interest lies mainly in creating unique, one-of-a-kind artwork that stirs a heartstring much the way a painting touches a soul, reminding people to relax, dream a little, connect to the world on a spiritual level, and let the wonder begin…