Very often, when an artist is working on a body of work that evolves around an idea or theme, a related, but new way of seeing the work will present itself. This new insight often leads the artist into another stream of thought that then leads to a body of work based on this new scheme. This is what happened to me when I took a five-week residency at Women’s Studio Workshop in Kingston, New York in 2018. The timing of my residency was important because the concentrated art making period allowed me to transition back into some of the work that I was exploring in the past. My electric kiln-fired porcelain wire-cut forms and related stoneware sculptures were further developed during this concentrated studio time. Using common crushed glass and industrial small porcelain spheres (used in industrial manufacturing as tumbling and polishing media) is a working method that offers considerable possibilities. I have found that I can use this ceramic media as a surface treatment that is either pushed directly into wet clay, or added as a textural element to slips or glazes. I don’t know of any other ceramists who are currently using porcelain polishing media in their work.

I consider all of my wire-cut nonrepresentational and figurative sculptural forms to fall under the open themed title of a series called, “Resurfaced Eccentricities”. Using “curly-wires” of different wave-frequency-like sizes, components for small sculptures are cut by wavy metal wires from a mound of clay. This technique creates delicate natural wire-cut slabs of clay or porcelain. Sometimes these slabs are overlaid on handbuilt forms and sometimes the handbuilt forms are directly cut into, leaving a fresh delicate fan-like surface. This wire cutting technique yields unpredictable results and the additive and subtractive processes involved in hand-building allow for intuitive forms to evolve and grow. These pieces are further enhanced with the aforementioned addition of porcelain ball inclusions. When the pieces are glazed, I often place chunks of glass in areas that will allow it to pool when melted. I choose to work with “found” glass, because I enjoy recycling glass containers, especially old blue glass jars that once held ointments or face cream. Once the glass is pulverized and ready for use, it resembles beach glass, but it’s not frosted because it has not been tumbled in the ocean.

Ultimately, I wish to create work that calms the spirit through natural earth, sky, and water hues and fresh seemingly unplanned and spontaneous organic looking forms and figures. In the end I want viewers to experience an unknown landscape or presence that can reflect the calm and pleasurable mysteries of an unexplored new world.