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My Ceramics

In the studio I like to do	Handbuilding, Throwing on the Wheel, Sculpting
Pottery Wheel	Brent Model B
Clay body	Stoneware
Clay Brand	Laguna BMix, Miller 60 Speckled tan
Kiln Type	Electric Kiln
Kiln Atmosphere	Oxidation Atmosphere
Temperature	Cone 6
Glaze	Commercial; mostly Amaco, some Coyote & Spectrum.
You can buy my work from	http://www.etsy.com/shop/foxrunpotterystudio

About Me

Introduction	I am from the USA. Connecticut to be exact. I took a long and winding road to get to where I am now in my current pottery passion.
What I Love about Ceramics	Everything!
How I started with ceramics	I have been in love with clay since the first time it touched my hands in grade school. I still have that unrefined little coil pot in candy apple red. I pursued ceramics for a while through high school (& convinced the administration to allow me and two of my classmates to create an advanced ceramics class). In college (at the Washington DC Corcoran College) I was loving sculpturing with clay but I allowed others to convince me that fine art was not a reliable major. I became lost and confused and ultimately dropped out. I did eventually find my way back to college when I turned 30 and got my BFA in Interior Design. Cut to 2015 when a potter friend gifted me a bag of clay and kiln privileges; I fell in love all over again. I now have a private studio in the basement of my Connecticut home. In 2017 I started my own Etsy shop, FoxRunPotteryStudio, where I sell birdhouses, birdfeeders, planters and other garden/nature-inspired items. It’s mostly fun and offsets the expenses associated for my pottery “hobby,” though I really want to go further with it.
What inspires me	As cliche as it sounds, I am inspired by the natural world around me. I have always been a gardener of some sort both indoors and out.
What I'm working on at the moment	I knew when opening up my Etsy shop that I needed to have a niche in order to set myself apart from other potters. I had developed my idea for birdhouses after seeing some other works online. I have an inventor’s mentality, always seeking to “build a better mousetrap” so, I devised a way to add a lid for cleaning out the birdhouses, a drainage hole and ventilation. I studied up on hole sizes that attract various types of birds and what size my houses should be. My initial attempts were fraught with problems; shrinkage, ill-fitting lids, cracking, crawling and other glaze problems. I had clients report that squirrels were chewing through the cord to get to the eggs so I spent months researching to find the best materials would be for hanging the houses, ultimately settling on ball/bead chain. Over time I have learned ways to improve my birdhouses and now they are a popular feature in my shop. After attending the Spring 2020 Ceramics Congress Virtual Workshops I am motivated to start creating sculptures once again. In college (the first time around) I created realistic and fantasy figural sculptures and I miss the sense of satisfaction that comes from giving the clay a living personality.
My Artist Statement	I’m not so sure I have found my voice as an artist but I am working on it.
My CV	Norwich Art School at Norwich Free Academy, Norwich, CT Corcoran College of Art and Design (Now a part of George Washington University in Washington D.C.) Paier College of Art, BFA in Interior Design, Hamden, CT Independent Studies: Dave Toscano, Westerly, RI (wheel throwing) Wesleyan Potters , Middletown, CT (wheel throwing) Guilford Art Center, Guilford, CT (Silversmithing) Currently, I pay the bills as a contract Interior Designer with an architectural firm, creating educational spaces and libraries. My dream is to one day have a stand-alone studio (no longer sharing my creative space with the washer, lawn mower and cat boxes) and to travel around the world meeting and learning from other clay artists.