When I graduated Kansas City Art Institute, I was making vessels I hoped would find places in people’s daily lives. Aesthetically, I was guided by 12th Century Asian potters and by my teacher-mentor Ken Ferguson. As I matured, I realized that my functional pieces were also attempts to use clay as a medium for exploring sexuality: I was pushing out the “bellies” of my teapots and pulling on their undulating “spouts.” But I was also making pots with lids that completely sealed off their interiors, denying entry into their dark mysteries. So I realized I needed to deal with the issue of sexual containment itself.

In actuality, my art has always reflected my concerns about freedom and containment because
I chose to be a ceramic sculptor: I create each piece freehand, without the use of a wheel or mold. I impress multiple patterns into a single thin slab of clay from which I construct the whole form—pushing and pulling different parts to create its sculptural shape. As the clay swells and expands, the patterns stretch and distort in the same way, widening as the form stretches out, just like the natural patterns on our bodies do. In this way, the patterns—and the textures they create—accentuate the form. And by juxtaposing repeated patterns in different directions, I create visual and tactile dissonance. This reflects my fascination with the visual and narrative power of pattern and form—and the reason I’ve always worked in clay: Its plasticity and malleability hold patterns and textures in ways that no other medium can.

My current pieces are attempts to reclaim the sexual aesthetics of past cultures through a re-examination of images, artifacts, and stories. Many are modern interpretations of ancient and primordial sexual myths. Like ceramics, myths survive forever.