| Introduction |
I grew up in Canada in a small town on the St Lawrence River. We swam and boated in the 1000 Islands summers and took annual trips to Nova Scotia where I was born to visit my grandparents. My grandmother painted landscapes in oils and gave me brushes and paints. My first serious oil painting was of sailboat. I moved to Toronto for university and began my art career in printmaking teaching and exhibiting lithographs and etchings at the Art Gallery of Ontario and University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus.  Wander lust took me to US South West where I completed my MA in Art at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. We travelled through Mexico by van and  I was deeply moved by  Pre Colombian, Anasisi, Puebla and Zuni pottery. In mid career I discovered my voice in clay and have been potting and making sculpture ever since. I prefer low fire salt and saggar large scale pieces that show the artists hand and emphasize the raw and changeable nature of firing in atmospheric conditions.
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| What I Love about Ceramics |
Ceramics is super challenging and I am constantly learning and discovering new things. I love the clay community- sculptors and potters are down to earth and willing ( like boaters ) to help you out.
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| How I started with ceramics |
My high school art teacher let me use the pottery wheel after school but seeing complex glazing test tiles really turned me off. Many years later I was casting cement fountains and wall sconces and someone asked me if I could make them a ceramic kitchen backsplash. I never say no! The rest is history.
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| What inspires me |
Ancient pottery and outsider art, music and young people.
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| What I'm working on at the moment |
Large scale hand coiled moon jars and open vessels atmospherically fired with salt and oxides in a saggar in my electric kiln.
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Community Points
