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I established Earthly Arts Pottery in 1982.
After twelve years of producing an exclusive wholesale line,
friends prompted me to participate in juried art shows.
Wishing to explore personal ideas and concepts, I agreed. At this point, my university art major and environmental minor coalesced.
Nine more years of experimenting and refining has yielded my present style and body of forms.
All work is done by myself, starting with dry clay blending, wet clay mixing and pugging. After these initial preparations, I size the clay for weight, then form by hand, either on the wheel or by slab rolling. Pieces may be altered by cutting, paddling, and faceting. Hand-built additions may be added. Handles are pulled or rolled.
Wet forms are allowed to dry. Then, I load them into a kiln for preliminary bisque firing. After the pieces are cool, they are removed from the kiln and the glaze process begins.
Forms are glazed using a variety of techniques, including resists, dipping, trailing, brushing, sponging and spraying. I have developed my own glaze formulas that give each piece its unique quality. My special style of glazing, more like a painting, is a labor-intensive process with the average piece requiring 400 to 600 specific brush strokes and trailing placed layer by layer over a base glaze.
When glazing is completed, the pieces are again stacked in the kiln and high-fired to a vitreous state. This requires eight to ten hours, with temperatures reaching as high as
2300° or cone 9-10, then cooling 12 to 14 hours.
In the end, I hope to have created art which suggests the beauty of our natural world. Individual pieces that can be used to generate personal expression and environment, and work which is life-inclusive by function.
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