I grew up in West Roxbury and moved to Walpole about ten years ago. I became interested in pottery about five years ago when I found the Potter's Place class list.

I love creating art but hadn't taken any formal classes before so I began experimenting with different mediums - oil painting classes, drawing, and ceramics. I started pottery in Gay's class and when she noticed I loved hand-building she recommended I check out Joyce's classes.

My favorite style and method is hand sculpting from a solid piece of clay. I love finding the form within the clay and I love the flexibility you have working with a solid piece of clay. Clay gives you the ability to make mistakes, make changes, and just totally scrap a piece and start over.

My absolute favorite part of the building process is cutting the piece open to hollow it out to dry. I love cutting the pieces into sections and then putting the sculpture together again.

I am not sure what inspires my pottery. I think I am still finding my creative style. Normally I will either work the clay until a form appears and go with that or an idea will become lodged in my head and I will find its form along the way. I really like starting and restarting pieces to get them the way I imagine. I like letting my creativity flow through the clay and not overthink it or try an stick to a reference image.

I really enjoy taking an idea through the different stages of development: experimenting with different forms, sculpting and detailing pieces. I love the process of building. I find it very centering.

Process, Flow, and Freedom. I love the process of sculpting and defining. I love the flow of my hands creating forms from the clay. And I love the freedom of being able to start over or change things as I go. 

My greatest challenge is a toss up between actually finishing pieces and conquering glaze. I am pretty confident with painting and color but the unpredictability of the glaze. The "trust the process" aspect is very intimidating to me. I have been trying to conquer this by experimenting with different glazes and underglazes and accepting that they may not come out in the exact way I imagined or planned. 

CHANGE

Change