Details

About Me

Introduction	I am a veterinary scientist by day and a sculptor by night, having double majored in sculpture and ecology as an undergrad, but at that time I mostly was involved in making metal sculptures, including metalcasting. Now my main mediums are glass (casting, fusing), and ceramics (sculpture, handbuilding, very new to throwing). I am obsessed with paperclay, from an artistic but also a scientific perspective, & will be experimenting & using it extensively, right now I am doing tests with different cellulose sources, clays, temperatures, & ways of using it. I’m also interested in finding ways to use glass and ceramics together, especially glass & paperclay, in art & maybe in practical ways. I think of myself as a sculptor first, and a potter second, but I love pinching, handbuilding, and look forward to the day I am solid on the wheel.
What I Love about Ceramics	I love that you could spend 4 lifetimes on it and never learn everything, that there is so much science behind ceramics, and that it has a lot in common with what I consider my “main” medium, glass, in ways that are unexpected. I find also that the wheel for me is not about creating things most of the time, it is about meditation and mindfulness and therapy for my painful hands & wrists, & that if I never produce anything useful off of it I will be just fine. But I do hope to be able to produce parts to use for handbuilding & sculptures with the wheel, & experimenting with using low cellulose paperclay on the wheel, & seeing how that changes/doesn’t change things.
How I started with ceramics	I started using plasticine and other non-drying clays very young, and before I went to college had taught myself a great deal of sculpture but rarely kept anything, which was good training for not becoming too attached to forms in process. I also started at about 5 years old slipcasting and applying glazes to small figures and vases at a park after school and summer program & kept doing that until I was 11 or 12. I used some ceramics & plasticines to sculpt in my undergrad sculpture days and after, but only started taking pottery and clay sculpture classes summer 2021 to push my sculpture to the next level. I have been a very fast learner & am setting up my studio now, & have already sold a planter for $100. I hope to become a professional part-time glass & ceramics sculptor/potter soon.
What inspires me	I am constantly inspired by nature and organic forms, animals (I am a wildlife veterinarian/veterinary epidemiologist), the politics around biodiversity & climate change, stories in my head that need expression in 3D form, and often just shapes that come to my head & hands- sometimes I have no idea what I am going to make until my hands tell me. I have a long list of artists that have inspired me over the years, & am continuing to find new exciting artists every day, often those who are not doing it full time or are famous. Color is very important to me, I express it in my hair, in my clothes, in my jewelry (when I bother wearing any) & home, I find color very important in art & do not subscribe totally to the thought that sculptures must be colorless or white or black or the color of the clay because color will take away from the form, I believe color is integral to telling the story of the sculpture & the piece.