Tambourine Platter. At the Saratoga Clay Arts Center exhibit, Playing With Fire, juried by Mark Shapiro. Photo by Joanne Cassaro.
I try to capture some of the contrasts and the variety that I find in nature in my work. I love to make boxes, including stacked forms, bottles, platters, plates, cups, and vessels for flower arranging. I am interested in how my work contains space and how it relates to the objects, food, or flowers that it holds. I hope you enjoy this aspect of my work too!
I love to build my work with slabs of clay that I then layer with slips (liquid clay) making marks through it to create movement and a dynamic quality that I find exciting and reminds me of printmaking.
I am fortunate to be able to fire my work in multiple ways. I fire in my electric kiln at my home studio, in a neighbor’s gas fired kiln, or in a wood kiln with a group of people, more often than not, at Kevin Lehman’s Pottery in Lancaster. I especially love the natural ash deposits and flashing of the wood firing. Each firing method creates a unique aesthetic, the wood-fired forms coming the closest to expressing my ideas about nature and beauty.
Double Walled Vase with Flowers
Cups Aflame, The Will of the Kiln exhibit at the New England Wood-Fire Conference
In the kiln at the Lancaster Creative Factory
Clay slab with multiple layers of slip and mark making.