Biography
Whether I feel joy or pain when I look at my work, it is those feelings that drive me forward and develop me as a potter.
I was born in Topeka Kansas and grew up not far from Kansas City in a small town called Gardner. It is there that I began my work as a potter. A scheduling conflict in high school landed me in a ceramics class where a knack for form, a belief I could do anything, and a willingness to fail repeatedly were all I needed to excel with clay. Several years after graduating high school in 1984, I came to a point where I had no idea what to do with my future; I decided to take a ceramics class at the local community college. I then went to the University of Kansas to study ceramics. There, working 10 to 12 hour days I learned it all, I thought. While I was at KU, I married my wife Diana and with the news I would soon be a father I decided to leave KU after only one year. I spent that summer building my studio and a two chamber wood kiln. That fall of 1989 I began making pots professionally. I learned very quickly how little I knew. I had no idea what to make or how to sell my work and I had never even been to an art fair.
Those first years were tough, but in those tough years I found my greatest teachers: the clay itself and the process. The relentless honesty of the clay always and still placidly demands no less than the absolute, while the process whispers in my ear "Slow down and you will get more accomplished".
Once I found these teachers things started to come together. When I left KU I could throw a three foot tall pot but I could not pull a decent handle on a mug. So I spent the first ten years focusing on mostly functional work while still producing large pieces. I only had two wheels at the time and one always had a big pot turning on it while I was cranking on small work. It felt good to see 100 mugs on a shelf all the same size and form and I began to see how forms do evolve over time. During this period I picked up some wholesale accounts and started going to art fairs. Art fairs were a whole other learning curve.
By the time I was in my early thirties I was making some nice forms and doing well at art fairs. At least my small pieces were. I found that my small functional pots sold well in the street but my larger pieces did not. Of course, my work was evolving in the direction of the larger more sculptural forms and so art fairs became a lot more work than fun. I built 11 different displays in 15 years trying to present the work better as it grew in scale. The hard work payed off and I was able to have some success. I felt as though I was achieving what I set out to do. Ironically as all this was taking place I had change in the back of my mind.
This autumn of 2009 I will have been making pots professionally for twenty tears. My focus is now more on the sculptural vessel and I am exhibiting in galleries and teaching workshops with the occasional art fair. I am switching to cone 6 with an emphasis on soda firing and have even considered the idea of firing in oxidation. Something I would have laughed at ten years ago.
Working in the studio right now is thrilling as well as somewhat tenuous. Armed with my knack for form, my belief I can do anything and my willingness to still fail repeatedly I have faith things will turn out fine.
