During my formative years as an undergraduate I was given, like so many students, a historical pot assignment. We were asked to choose an image of a vessel, learn its historical relevance, and translate it back into clay. This pot, which had consumed nearly a year of practice, developed my personal aesthetic sense. A year later I had the opportunity to visit the Freer museum in Washington D.C. Strolling through the basement archives, I discovered the Song Dynasty cup and saucer that I had so admired. It was not until a few years later when I moved to Jingdezhen, that I began to truly understand the subtle and unique qualities it demonstrates. This in-depth study matters both for itself and as a means of establishing a base of knowledge and experience.

The anxieties of a first kiss, the loss of identity in a foreign country, the touch of wet clay spinning between my thumb and forefinger, are intoxicating ingredients in life. Working on the potter's wheel, clay stretching between my fingers, I find a location, a capability outside of concept.   It is similar to courtship or viewing a sunset, the act of throwing a vessel is never insipid; it is suggestive and full, it's offering is slow.

My work is a record of observations, an amalgamated map of the world I reflect upon.   I view my time making as a private act.   Yet those moments remain as a tool to initiate experiences and make connections with others in the world. Something ineffable happens when using pottery. Perhaps it is a feeling of connectedness which is never forced or hurried, nor drifting or lost. The experience is one of solidity, found in the participation of the sense s . I have found producing pottery as a kind of play; a regenerative act ripe with reverence, revealing the human hands enduring connection to creativity.