Etsy

I think my work will always be about my love for story. I find inspiration in describing fleeting moments of life’s larger narrative—a magpie alights on a fence, a man tries to describe a flying fish for a 1902 nature book, a swallow’s wings turn sharp against the sky as it dives.

My mother was a potter and art teacher. Under her influence I grew up making art, but concentrated on the written word in school, eventually earning a PhD in literature in 1994. That same year my mom died from breast cancer, leaving me her well-used wheel, kiln, and a series of mysterious glaze recipes. It took nearly ten years and several moves later to see what I had inherited. I found myself in Southern Oregon, teaching literature but connecting with a group of ceramic artists who showed me how to shape the fog of grief into the delight of working with clay. During those years, my studio was a 6X6 foot pumphouse where I worked every spare moment, making pots and competing with the pump and waterlines for space. My kiln was outside. As a result, I like to say that my apprenticeship in ceramics was literally affected by the rolling of the seasons and the events of the natural world around me.

The illustration-aspect of my work borrows heavily from books, particularly woodcut and lithograph prints. I often incorporate words into my designs and layer colored engobes and underglazes. Each piece is hand carved from drawings or patterns of my own. Unless otherwise stated, my work is dishwasher, oven, and food-safe.

Check out more about my process in the other places I lurk on the web:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/pumphousestudios
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasithere/
http://wasithere.typepad.com/blog/
http://www.facebook.com/pumphouse.studios