I'm a ceramicist working out of a small studio in Santa Cruz, California. I make sculpture, wall work, and wind bells in stoneware. Most of it hand-carved, some of it slab-built, all of it fired to cone 10.
Statement
The work is observational. I'm interested in forms made without human design. Coral reef, desert terrain, weathered stone, the surface of something that's been outside too long. Forms shaped by weather, ocean current, sea creatures, repetition, and time.
I came to ceramics from 30+ years of graphic design, a discipline obsessed with intention. Every line is decided. Every margin is measured. My ceramic practice is, in part, a counter to that. I want to make objects that look like they weren't made. Forms that read as found rather than designed.
Kurinuki, a Japanese hand-carving technique that hollows form from a solid block of clay, suits this well. The method is subtractive, like erosion. Marks read as removed rather than added. When the work is doing what it's supposed to, a piece looks closer to something dredged from a tide pool than something made on a Tuesday afternoon.
I try to leave the reading open. If someone sees coral, they see coral. If someone sees a piece of weathered architecture, they see that. The work doesn't insist on a single interpretation; it functions as a mirror for whatever the viewer brings to it.
ProcessMost pieces are kurinuki-carved or slab-built from heavily grogged stoneware, usually Black Mountain or Speckled Buff. Both clay bodies are dark-firing and sand-rich, which gives the surface tooth and the broken edges character. Glazes are mostly cone 10 reduction: shinos, celadons, copper greens, and ash-leaning recipes that pool and break around carved geometry.
Wall pieces and tiles use the same clay bodies, slab-built and surface-carved. Wind bells are slab construction and carved.
Firings happen at a community kiln in Santa Cruz.
BackgroundOutside the studio, I'm a graphic designer (currently running Astonishing Work), a surfer, an ocean lover, and a drummer in a band called The Fangers, which has been described as surf grunge. I collect cacti and spend time in the California desert. None of these things sit cleanly apart from the work — the ocean and the desert show up in everything I make.
Inquiries
Open to commissions, exhibitions, and gallery representation. Get in touch.