Textured Clay Vessels

After I throw each vessel on the potter's wheel and it dries leather-hard, I trim its rough edges and indent the exterior surface with a variety of handmade steel-tipped tools.

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In a single vessel, the number of indentations can vary from 500 to 5,000, each placed by hand and eye. As a result, no two vessels are ever the same. Each vessel is given further character by carving and incising the rim, again in designs that reflect Pre-Columbian patterns and form.

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When the vessel is completely dry, it is stained and fired to a stoneware temperature of 2,150 degrees Fahrenheit. All vessels are made of tough stoneware, are glazed (lead free) on the interior and can be used in the oven, dishwasher, and microwave.

Born in 1961, I grew up on a working Pennsylvania Dutch farm 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia, PA. I spent most of my childhood outside in nature. When not working the farm, I spent hours constructing dams at the creek, building forts in the woods and hunting arrowheads in the fields after heavy summer thunderstorms. Around the age of thirteen, I met the potter I would eventually apprentice at a local craft show and convinced my father to help me build a kick wheel.

I have worked in clay ever since, eventually specializing in a type of folk pottery I have developed over the past twenty-two plus years. I call it "Church Key Pottery." By using a simple tool found in any kitchen of the past hundred years, I have devised a new form of traditional folk art. Continuously exploring, I have developed dozens of distinct patterns over the past three decades.

It's been a couple years since I shut my full-time studio down to start a new chapter and give my tired hands a rest.  This late summer I bought a small wheel for the courtyard and now creating again in a very limited way.  If you are interested in a purchase I direct you to my only gallery that represents me at this time. It is Park Street Gallery in Paso Robles, CA. Visit the gallery in person or contact them at www.parkstreetgallery.com to inquire what is currently available.

COLLECTIONS

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

Renwick Gallery

Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC

American Embassy

Bangkok, Thailand

Georgia Pacific

Atlanta, GA

MCI

Washington, DC