When people meet me, the common first question I get asked is "Is Potter your given name, or did you change it?" No, I didn't change it and I don't think I was destined by my name to become a potter. However, I do appreciate the fact that my last name is congruent with a big part of my identity. Although I do have other creative pursuits I have practiced with some intensity and discipline (like photography, stained glass, and rug making) I seem to always come back to pottery. There is joy in the making.

I have created ceramics on and off since I was a young teenager. In high school I spent most of my spare time in the pottery studio. I have some of my first pieces that my mother kept; like most beginnings, they are not great, but I'm glad to have them to look back on. We all have to start somewhere, and I recall being pretty pleased with these creations when I made them!

I have become fascinated with adding colorants to clay that can form intricate and beautiful patterns and designs that are imbued into the clay itself rather than resting on top like a glaze. This frees me from the tyranny of glazing!

I have also become increasingly committed to the practice of hand building. I know that some people find this method restrictive but I find it freeing. Hand building allows me to explore what clay can do in so many ways, and allows one to take advantage of the versatility of clay. I enjoy the fact that I am engaged in an activity that human beings have literally been doing for thousands of years.

There are many sources of inspiration for my work: nature, emotions, life events. Sometimes I'm inspired to make by something I see: a shape, a pattern. Sometimes my work is a way to express or work through a feeling through the creative process. When things go well, there is an energy that drives and directs; and an object, whether practical, whimsical, or abstract appears from a lump of clay.

I am constantly telling myself (and my students) that it's only clay, and therefore can be tried again or scrapped, and something else can be tried. Failure isn't the end, it's the beginning of learning and what we as the maker see as a failure someone else may see as brilliance.

Clay is a great teacher of humility, patience, and impermanence.

My greatest challenge is sustaining my effort on a particular piece until it is completed. I seem to have so many ideas clamoring to be realized that it is easy for me to get distracted. At the same time, it sometimes can take me a very long time to finish a piece because I am wracked with indecision about what glaze to use, or how I might glaze it. It takes bravery and acceptance that the piece might not work out as planned, and to go with it wholeheartedly anyway.

In 2020, just at the beginning of the Pandemic, I had a crisis with my eyesight, and had to have emergency surgery. Thank goodness that we live in a part of the world where first class medical care is only a short car ride away. This event had made me face the possibility that I could lose my sight, and also potentially my art. While I still wish this had not happened, this adverse event made me appreciate my ability to work with clay, in all its diverse forms, and never to take this ability for granted. I feel an urgency to continue to make, to learn, to teach, and to experience working as a potter for as long as I am able with gratitude and appreciation.