Thank you for looking at my work.

Here are some late night ramblings....

I've been working with clay for a lot of my life in some way. Every since I was little, I have been interested in clay. My father built me a play kitchen with a dishpan built in as a sink. But instead of pretending to wash dishes, I dug up dry clay I found a mile away, brought it home and dissolved it in the sink so I could experiment with it. It was my first experience with clay and I had no idea of a connection of clay with pottery. I had never seen pottery. I knew of plastic and glass.

I focus mainly on functional pottery. It is my favorite metaphor for the many circles that turn, connect and intersect in this world. The clay, formed by many organic processes involving and intertwining with birth, life and death, comes from the earth. As all living creatures do, I constantly look for or plan for nourishment to sustain my own life and the lives of others around me. For this purpose I look to the earth.
Containers of some sort play a large part in our lives as humans. They separate prepared food from its source. Eating remains a constant for existence, regardless of how refined and separated we may think ourselves to be. Pottery comes straight from the earth. It is as organic as we are. It is the perfect utensil to assist in our ritual of food intake. It aids in a worship of our planet and the life it gives to each of us. Just as this planet turns, clay turns in a circle on the wheel. The cup, plate or bowl participates in the ritual of nourishment, but eventually food, clay and we will circle around to return to the earth to continue all evolution and metamorphosis.

My obsession with leaves is closely linked to my surroundings. I live in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in the Appalachian Mountain Range. These are very old mountains. They have endured much and recently they have experienced a lot of development. Many of the small valleys are full. The only place left to build is up on the slopes. It is not uncommon to travel after a period of time to the next town over looking at the scenery thinking something is missing. Yes, there's a mountain missing. It has been demolished and hauled off.

A few years ago I was driving on the highway about 7 miles from home. I saw a group of workers with bulldozers and chainsaws attempting to do some "beautification" of a building site. They were cutting down maple, oak, ash, poplar, hemlock, fir and buckeye trees. Mingled in this little forest were some mimosa trees. The only trees they left standing were those invasive mimosa trees.
Some of the most diverse plant species can be found in this area. It is disappearing. Not only is it disappearing from development, it is disappearing from foreign species of plants and insects and pollution. The American Chestnuts are gone. The hemlocks are next.

Even though I do not use exclusively native leaves, I use and recycle them the majority of the time. I do not discriminate against "weeds" for I feel that they are beautiful too. They are also very often medicinal and nutritious. Pressing leaves into clay takes them out of context and allows that plant to show a new and, hopefully, true identity.

My hope with creating pottery with leaves is that the leaves will intrique someone enough to research that plant and find out about its origin and benefits. Maybe, even if it's only one person, they will think about these native, some very rare, plants when building a new house, planting a garden or using "weed" killer. Just maybe those plants will have a chance to vine and interlace other cycles and circles and live on so that we won't be left with only these fossils that I'm making.

Yes, I'm a dreamer.

If you just like leaves, that's cool too.



If you're wondering about my education.... I have more than my share of that. I took a lot with me and I left a lot behind. But the most important thing I know is that no matter how much I have learned, I know nothing. I haven't even begun to scrape the surface of any subject.

Thanks for stopping by. (p.s. I love emails)
Please visit these websites to learn more about plants.
http://www.acf.org/ (American Chestnut Trees)
http://www.americanelm.com/index.htm (American Elm Trees)
http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/publications/pdfs/hemlock_putz.pdf (American Hemlocks)
http://www.nature.org/initiatives/invasivespecies/features/
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/wildlife.html (endangered species)