Largely a self-taught potter, I have been working with clay full-time since 1998. I was born in Ithaca, New York, and graduated from Oberlin College, where I studied Philosophy, French, and Music. I moved to Santa Fe in 1989. Teaching English in the Santa Fe schools, I began to seek out potters to apprentice.
This was the beginning of my career in art—though actually, I had always spent my time in studios and workshops, and had always sought out artists from whom I could learn about form, materials, tools. Using my hands to be creative has always seemed essential to me in life. As a teenager I apprenticed in the metal shop of Murad Sayen, and the aesthetics of iron and steel influence my pots now—they often seem ‘forged’ or ‘rusty,’ with metallic surface treatments used in place of a glaze.