Welcome to my gallery.  I have created this site for people who have asked about my work:  for friends from other places who want to see what I’ve been up to and for people who are new to my work.  It also serves as an archive for myself, so that I can remember pots that are no longer in my possession.  This is not a sales site, but if you live in Tucson and would like to talk to me about seeing some of my work in person, please use the contact form at the bottom of this site

Bio

When I began my career as a literature professor in Chicago, Illinois, I decided I needed to find an expressive outlet that had nothing to do words. The first thing I tried was pottery—and I never left, maybe because I was so bad at it that I stubbornly refused to cut my losses and move on. Also, though, I was immediately drawn to the tactile nature of working with clay. Every touch I made on wet clay affected how I would touch it next. I could control the process, but only to a certain point.

For over twenty years I took classes, off and on, at the LillStreet Art Center, where many wonderful teachers and students taught and inspired me. At first I aspired, as do many new potters, to “throw” on the wheel, but after a hiatus of several years I started back with the basics—the humble pinch pot—and never went back to the wheel.

When I moved to Tucson, I continued making the same forms that I was making in Chicago, but I soon came to see in their shapes and colors the landscapes and colors of the Sonoran desert and mountains.

I have discovered that I am a lazy potter.  I like making surfaces and finishes that do most of the decorative “work” of a pot.  This is useful when making pottery in a desert, where clay begins drying—fast!—as soon as you start working with it.  I’ve had to learn to work quickly and to follow a shape once I’ve started it in a general direction. 

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