Artist's Statement:
"ICON: A religious image painted on a small wood panel." While my forms are not religious in the traditional sense and I don't paint on small wood panels, I do think of myself as an icon maker.

My connection is to the earth and to the very oldest cultures who used simple materials and tools to form their icons. Icons of skin, bone, stones...whatever the world around them offered. I feel a deep connection to these cultures that used (and still use) ceremony and ritual to understand their lives. Once, long ago, a friend exclaimed to me at a beautiful sunset, "Wouldn't you love to paint it?" "No", I replied, "I'd build an altar to celebrate it!" Many years ago, before I had committed myself to ceramics, I attended an exhibit of early Chinese art. I was drawn toward a huge, crude, storage pot. As I leaned over to look into it's depths I saw an impression of the makers hand. An electric jolt ran through me as I experienced an intense connection to this ancient, unknown pot maker and her materials.

Over the years my work has evolved from functional pieces into pure sculpture, while keeping all of the craft traditions. Also, like Alexander Calder, sculptor of stabiles and mobiles, I find myself making small playful fetish forms. Calder's joyful wire pieces were of animals...mine still fall into the icon category as I think of them as guardians.

I see my latest work as powerful, simple and organic, like beautiful stones or bones. The images come from a lifetime of observing how nature has worked the earth and how those ancient people I feel so connected to have spoken of their lives and to their gods.

I love this wonderful material, clay, and the art and craft of bringing form to it. For the past 29 years I have been endlessly engrossed in learning it's secrets. While I prefer my work to stay close to it's origins, to look like clay, I have begun to incorporate more color on the surface. My fetish forms also incorporate a variety of materials: bones, stones, shell, wood, beads, metal and found objects.

When my sculptures are successful, I feel as though they grow from the earth itself and that they recall images and myths that reach back to the earliest times.

Process:
All of my sculpture is hand built, that is, not thrown on the potter's wheel. The usual coil, pinch and slab techniques I use are as old as the craft itself. While very simple and easily learned, if one is able to have the patience to learn to use them with consummate skill, these simple techniques can produce powerful, sophisticated pieces of work.

Ceramics is a complex process. The artist must master three separate skills: forming, firing and surface or glaze treatment. In the past my main concern was with forming and firing. Over the past two years I have introduced more color onto the surfaces. I still like my pieces to look earthy, so the color is often rubbed into the texture of the piece rather than applying a solid coating.

How is my art different from when I started:
I started as a functional potter, trying to do production. That means throwing on the wheel and making LOTS of an individual item. I hated it. My forms were good and even then sculptural in that I was concerned with form, not surface. However, I eventually accepted that I was in the wrong branch of ceramics and finally got the courage to move to what I really loved...sculpture.

Where do I work?:
I have my own studio located in the town of Friday Harbor at Star Storage, 50 Malcolm St. I really like the location...just a few minutes walk from a cup of coffee yet very quiet and private. A friend said that it reminded them of a working class street in Portugal...cinder block buildings with red tile roofs! This is where the hands on work happens. However the "work" goes on all the time internally. Walks in the woods, down old city streets, in the shrine room of the Buddhist center I belong to, conversations with other artists, it happens everywhere

Inspiration:
My artist's statement outlines my basic inspiration. Some contemporary artist's whose work has struck a deep chord and supplied much instruction through study of their forms and impetus are Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Georgia O'keefe for some of her pieces and all of her determination, and Andy Goldsworthy.

Where can my work be seen:
Currently my work is shown at Waterworks Gallery in Friday Harbor. I also open my studio to the public by appointment and am aiming to be open on Tuesdays without need for an appointment. I am also a member of the San Juan Island Artists' Studio Tour. Each year we open our studios to the public during the first weekend in June.

Current Focus
A show of my work at Waterworks Gallery sometime in 2005.

Mentoring
I believe in the mentoring process and have often been involved in it either by taking on apprentices in my studio or working with individuals from the local high school and once or twice from the grade school.

Classes:
I have done a lot of teaching over the years, from individuals or classes in my studio to the junior college. At present I do not teach but am happy to answer questions as best I can concerning anything about the ceramic process.