Friday I  bisque fired my kiln in preparation for my students to start glazing on Monday.  Now, I have a rather low-tech kiln with no kiln sitter (except for me), which means I have to monitor it and turn it up every hour.  This means I get to spend about twelve hours in my studio at a stretch which is a rare and treasured occurrence. My studio is conveniently located in my backyard along with a rather large lemon tree that we planted about sixteen years ago.  This is a unique tree because it has two[…]

I listened to a really interesting podcast the other day about blind people who can see using echo-location.  The areas of their brains that have to do with vision where activated when they were using this technique.  This made me wonder, what is happening in my brain when I start work on a pinch pot? During the early stage of building, when you are holding the clay in your cupped hands, passing it back and forth, pinching the walls to make them thinner–your fingertips are your eyes.  They give you so much information.  You can tell[…]

  The world needs art. Art establishes connections between strangers. It tells a story, takes you some place. It comments on society, humanity and the world. It expresses feelings and invokes responses. It lets us know we’re all in it together.     The world needs my art. It needs my art because my art is about this beautiful world.  It’s about making connections between water currents and fern fiddle heads.  It’s about the similarity in the curvature of a spine and the shape of a wave.  And it’s about a transparent seashell and the palm[…]

It’s 4:17 on Friday the 28th and I’m in the glazing area of my studio working on some of the last mugs to be in the Sustainable Craft Fair.  I hear the sound of something falling and wonder what it was.  I am also ten minutes away from finishing a glaze firing and turning off my kiln.  I walk into the kiln area and look around–nothing seems amiss.  Then I decide to peek in the kiln and see if the last cone has gone down and I should turn the flame off.  Where are the cones? […]

I recently went to see my friend Jefferey Beauchamp’s show at the Seager/Gray Gallery in Mill Valley.  It was beautiful!  I’ve known Jeff for more than twenty years and  of course his art has changed over that time.  I realized that somewhere durring that time he has become a master of his medium.  He can realize any idea he wants in his painting and then throw in some elements to surprize you and make you look at the whole picture again, with a new perspective.   This one is called Proper and Common, some of my[…]