Originally starting off as a 30-day social media mug challenge, the 30 Sculptural Mug series became a months-long project. Comments left on various social platforms were selected to challenge the way I thought about utility and functionality in a ceramic cup. This engagement gave viewers influence over the series and provided me with alternate ways of working with ceramics and language.
This work — made to be used, held, and experienced — started as a conversation between the wheel, the clay, and me. These pieces aren’t fussy or formal; I make them with attention to the moment. Because I often film the making, the process tends to supersede the outcome. These are everyday pieces.
Collective Creation is a large-scale installation comprised of hundreds of community finished pieces piled together haphazardly as a testament to the freedom that becomes possible when the end result just doesn’t matter.
Just before the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I attended a Billy Joel concert. That evening, I witnessed 30,000 people singing “Piano Man,” their voices filling a stadium and creating what I can only describe for myself as a quasi-religious experience. I realized in that moment that no one was concerned with the outcome. No one worried about singing in tune, or whether their riff landed. Their cares melted away in a sea of voices, lost in the anonymity of the crowd. This was an “aha” moment.
Several years ago, I created hundreds of slip-cast forms as part of a large installation. As I was casting, I became uninterested in the finished look of the work. I found that removing the pieces from the mold and immediately casting the next piece without concerning myself with the outcome provided freedom and joy in the process that I hadn’t experienced before. I leaned into the release from the outcome. The sheer amount of work I was producing became the catalyst for my own creative freedom. It didn’t matter what each piece looked like because they would be lost in a pile of hundreds. This realization -- one rooted in volume, anonymity, and shared experience -- would become the driving forces in this project.
This recent work combines my growing interest in process with concept. Carved while bone-dry, these pieces were altered in their most vulnerable state and became an allegory for my childhood trauma. It was important to me that the breaks were organic; because of their fragility, it's impossible to know exactly how the pieces would crack and break as the wounds were being inflicted.
After being carved, the pieces were under-fired giving them a bright white finish. It also ensured that their fragility continues after being cured just as I feel the effects of childhood trauma in my everyday adult life.
A self-portrait of sorts, this installation became an exploration of memories and relationships. The individual pieces surrounding the figure represented personal recollections and connections.
Featuring hundreds of slip-cast forms, I brushed up against true freedom in the making process for the first time. The sheer amount of work I was producing, hundreds of pieces, became the catalyst for my own creative freedom. It didn’t matter what each piece looked like because they would be lost in a pile of many.
Positioned in a nine-foot round room with objects almost surrounding the viewer, the installation required the viewer to enter a space and feel the work around them.
Made during a 2014 internship with the Kohler Arts/Industry Residency program through the John Michael Kohler Art Center, this work explores the addition of organic forms on Kohler sanitation wares.