Artist's Statement

Clay represents Mother Earth to me. I produce vessels with clay and fire for their elemental beauty . . . elements truly as old as the Earth. What an ancient calling it is! Was the first wheel invented to spin vertically for transportation or horizontally for shaping clay? How long have potters’ wheels been spinning? As all potters who have gone before me, I plunge my hands into the Earth to forge an industry . . . a thing of beauty . . . a vessel.

The dancer’s body is a vessel through which art pours. Is that not the function of the dancer’s body? I choose to work with functional form. The temporal nature of use — the idea that one of my vessels will be used, was used, or is being used right now — is exciting. The use, more than the thing itself, connects me to the flow of life. It is as if, were the vessel made properly, it would practically disappear. A smooth, graceful handle makes one forget about the handle. It is sublime. The user’s connection with it can then approach the subliminal.

I’m often asked why I make teapots. Simply, I love making them. Beginning potters are told that the teapot is an advanced form that requires much practice. Subconsciously, I think that set a goal for me and, subconsciously, I think I wanted to give my mom and my grandmother each a teapot (it’s a British thing). A couple years later, a visiting college professor from England demystified the process for me by making 25 teapots in one weekend. And it was a couple years later still, after college, when I actually gave my mother and grandmother my first successful teapots.

I now find myself on the cusp of maturity. I like music with a nice melody and I like my teapots to pour well. I find that I have specialized in a libation celebrated in both Eastern and Western cultures, nowhere more profoundly than in Japan, and nowhere longer than in China. In my romantic notion, I think that you can still find pottery guilds there with masters who guard their traditions. To become a master, the humble initiate must submit his finest work for consideration — his masterpiece. He must submit a teapot.