statement

The ability to make objects of everyday utility draws me to be a maker. The humility of clay as a material draws me to be a potter. 

My life-long love affair with the spirit of pottery made by the countless, nameless terracotta folk-potters of India has informed my value system as an artist. The unassuming love of material permeates the quiet gentle forms I make. Values of practicality and service are in my background and upbringing, and are expressed in the objects I make.

As I reflect on the way bright and rich colour plays across the objects of my childhood memories, I feel a tension between humility and adornment.  My current work is an exploration of how these two things can intertwine: modesty and reserve versus boldness and drama.  Using both high temperature wood-firing and low-fire processes I am developing and discovering how to think about that complex relationship.

The theater of the wood-fired surface appeals to the dramatic aspects of what I seek in my art. The wide variation in colour and the visual evidence of dynamic flame- and ash- path on the clay surface as it traverses the kiln, coexist with the restrained forms. 

Bright colour is such a fundamental part of everyday life in India: from our fabrics to our houses, from our rituals to our food, there is hardly anything more quintessentially Indian than colour. Through electric firing and lower temperature ranges I have recently started incorporating coloured surfaces on my work, attempting to mimic the effect of peeling paint on weathered wooden and metal surfaces. 

Achieving these aged, worn, and tarnished surfaces feels true and honest to who I am and allows me to create objects of beauty without pretense. They speak of beauty changed with use and time: form and surface adornment uniting to speak of everyday objects that are valued and loved.