bio / statement
I grew up on Long Island in New York State, and began apprenticing for a local potter at 15. I also took the Long Island railroad to NY on the weekends and went to the art museums. In 1967 I stumbled into the Guggenheim and into the largest retrospective the work of Paul Klee ever to be seen in the United States. This work is what initially awakened me to realize that the inner world as I understood it, the forces of the nature of things, could be projected onto an image and could be expressed through line, color, space and texture. It was an epiphany.
I continued to find my way with clay around the country, to more apprenticeships and study, then to London and more study, continuing the practices of a studio potter.
In 1979 I took a break from clay for an extended period of world travel which led to India and the pursuit of the spiritual in art and eventually to the bodies of work on this website and writing of my book, MoonTime: Receiving Images of Consciousness through Clay, Drawing and Word.
Clay is the skin of the Earth, her most abundant element, and as such it has consciousness and imagination. Moontime is about finding relational consciousness with clay, sharing consciousness and imagination with this primary source.
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My personal process of creating image and form is best described by the Sanskrit word sadhana—intention towards knowledge of the Self. I focus intention on the ordering, understanding, and transformation of consciousness—the creative force. That creative force is ruled and shaped by the feminine principle, the source from which all life flows. I make myself available to give form and voice to Her principles and potential through clay, drawing, and word.
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Humanity lives by images, and any evolution in consciousness will be seen in the images by which we live.
How shall we imagine the inexhaustible potential of the feminine, and in what form? To that end, I work between words, mixed media on paper, and clay. For me, clay carries the consciousness of the feminine, and awakens me to the primordial roots of human consciousness that are still alive and, with attention, appear through clay as animated and symbolic forms. These forms nourish, preserve, and redeem consciousness by returning and integrating the feminine to both individual and collective awareness.
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My aesthetics are in the processes out of which the forms and images are created rather than in aesthetics as an unchangeable or static value. I do not view the works as ends in themselves, but as instruments and expressions of the desire to enter a mysterious realm, and a longing to transcend; allowing information to enter from what I call source energy. It enters my body/vessel through a filter that I create, both consciously and unconsciously. The more I can take in and and the less I shape it, the closer I feel to being nature itself.
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Receptivity to the creative force is what I seek to impart through my work, and to my students.
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about pit-firing
These ceramic pieces are made using the hand building techniques of pinch and coil. The vessel sculpture is then coated with a clay slip called terra sigillata (earth seal), which is a refined slip that can give a soft polished sheen. The Greeks and Romans used it in lieu of glaze. The pieces are then smoke -fired.
Smoke or "pit-firing" is the oldest known method for firing pottery. Examples have been dated as early as 29,000-25,000 BC. Unfired pots are nestled together in a pit or brick box surrounded with combustible materials such as wood, leaves wood shavings and sometimes metallic oxides and salts, to effect the surface of the pot. The pit is then set on fire and covered until the combustibles are consumed. The maximum temperatures are moderate; the vessels hold water but remain porous.
to buy a piece
Please contact me directly to inquire about availability and pricing. Prints of many images are available on request and in various sizes and up to very large sizes. Moon Time books are $25 plus shipping. Payments can be made through Zelle, Venmo or Paypal.