Woodland Sun Pottery

Way to Be?

How can I get out from under the layers of my identity and just be?  Can I do it zooming with old high school friends, watching a salmon swim up river to spawn, sailing on a mountain lake breeze, or sitting quietly on a cushion? My pieces I see as primitive icons along my path of Being-ness — visual representations of showing me the way, being distracted from it, being close to it, or maybe arriving at it

Why Clay?

I connect with clay.  It’s malleability, plasticity, receptiveness to touch, ability to flow, become leather hard, dry, and if fired to thousand degree temperatures become solid and exist for over 15,000 years, I find enticing.  To express an image from a lump intrigues and challenges me.  Clay also helps me accept myself unconditionally.  My hands and wits are not particularly fine-tuned, agile, or certainly not efficient. I often bungle along, try to do better, and thanks to the plasticity of clay am allowed to keep at it until something takes shape that I can take on to the next step in the process.  With clay if I don’t like a piece I can throw it into the slop bucket and recycle it into another piece. So with clay it’s okay to mess-up and try again, in fact, sometimes somewhat satisfying, because it indicates that I may be challenging myself.  For example, for this show I worked on a figurative piece of my yoga teacher and her cat for months only to have it blow up.   Yes, that was disappointing but I learned much from forming the piece, still have one head, and a good story to tell.  Of course, it’s great when pieces make it through the whole creation process, but the fact is the firing has the final say.

Clicking on the pictures may take you places.