My Story

I started my first studio in 1973, the day I graduated from college. I worked for the next 18 years at realizing the dream of being an independent and successful studio potter. In 1991 I went to live in Ireland for a year, fighting burnout and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

A chunk of the earth, plus the added aspect of alchemy, that change—from clay or "primordial ooze"—into something of substance and form, along with the fear and magic of fire, is what I think brought me back to clay and the studio after the extended time off from the making of objects with these hands and earth—and it is that spirit and beauty that I want to convey to others.

In May of 1994, I opened my studio and gallery to the public. I had realized that my previous problems were with how I was running my life and business, not with the clay itself. The time had come to stop being an isolated artist and change into someone that could work with community, using that word in the largest sense.

Time For A Change

I was in the middle of doing the Philadelphia Craft show. I had new work that I loved, a new more elegant display system and great expectations.

This was a show that I had done several times before and I felt honored to be accepted again. Plus it was a special 20 year anniversary from their first show (that I was also in!) to this one. I think there were just 5 craftspeople in the show who could claim that same feat.

I was ready to have the best show ever. So much for expectations. No one was even looking at my work and they certainly weren’t pricing it.

The writing was on the wall. Collectors were into decorating them selves and their bodies. They were buying furniture, clothing and jewelry, not pottery. They had enough ‘stuff’. And my work was too quiet to catch attention. If I could have made them MUCH BIGGER or purple dots or??? But I could not do that.

These pieces were ‘me’. All of me and all made by me. And the market and times were passing by the solo studio craftspeople for other kinds products and productions. It was time to totally change course.

I made the decision to quit in the middle of the show. I didn’t have any second thoughts. When I sent a card out to my mailing list announcing that plan I got a number of letters from people. There was a fairly even split of people that congratulated me and urged me on and another group that was horrified. It says a lot about those who take risks and those that can’t even imagine doing something like that.

Time Passes

After more than twenty five years of working with clay and then an additional fifteen years doing massage work and using my body as my main tool, I ran out of energy and health. The past number of years, I’ve been working on Shadowboxes.

In the spring of 2021 I turned seventy. Now I’m in another huge transition. The years in-between were spent doing massage therapy work and living near the ocean. Once again I am pondering where I might be going. The question I keep asking myself, is “how will I be (do I want to be) remembered?” There’s nothing monumental to mark my time on this earth, but there are lots of smaller and “normal’ things that I hope are true. I hope I am seen as being kind and generous, curious and artistic. I’ve also been told I have a great laugh. 

All of my work has been with my hands: first as a studio potter, then as a massage therapist. And now, as a retired ‘something’. I’ve made thousands of pots that have my touch in them. I spent thousands of hours touching humans, many of them suffering some sort of pain or injury. That kind of work has ended. These days I walk my dog and collect all sorts of things from the edge of the ocean. 

This website is a record of what is available from my art pottery career. In addition there are shadow boxes and driftwood structures /constructions all made with ‘stuff’ gleaned from the edge of the vast endless sea.

My earlier work with clay was about nature and her patterns. This newest work is still about patterns, but they are made with nature’s own remnants.