I was born in Fort Knox Kentucky and grew up in Phoenix Arizona. I have lived in New Mexico for 30 years and currently live in the village of Nambé, just north of Santa Fe. I attended college at Arizona State University in the 1980s, majoring in Digital Media Arts and Installation, while also studying Pre-Columbian Art History.
My knowledge of ceramics came from practical experience. I apprenticed at the F&R Pottery Studio in Cave Creek Arizona while attending ASU. Later I went on to work for the Red Horse Clay Company in Mesa Arizona, where I managed the production studio and designed images for their line of southwestern interior accessories.
My teaching experience includes the Summer Ceramic Workshop at Otterbein University in Westerville Ohio classes at Santa Fe Community College and Santa Fe Clay in New Mexico. In addition to my studio practice, I am the webmaster for the New Mexico Tourism Department.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Throughout my art career, I have been incredibly lucky. My work was taken on by the Elaine Horwitch Gallery in Scottsdale Arizona in 1986. Since then, I have exhibited my work widely across the US and Mexico. A friend of mine once said “The harder you work, the luckier you get” and I remain diligent in my studio practice.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My primary medium is painted and glazed ceramic sculpture. But I am also a painter, chiefly using acrylic on canvas. Technology is also a pursuit of mine including animation and digital design. The primary foundation of my work is the creation of imaginary worlds. When I was young my uncle gave me a complete set of L Frank Baum’s Oz books. It still amazes me how The Land of Oz was so thoroughly imagined.From the maps and illustrations to the way, every part of the landscape was so completely described creating what seemed to be an actual place. The same could be said of Narnia and course Middle Earth. I consider myself to be a storyteller and I create characters that inhabit worlds beyond our understanding.I imagine exotic civilizations far from our home galaxy and possibly outside of this universe. And it is in these worlds that I place my characters. My work is brightly colored and cheerful at least at first glance. But there can be a darker aspect. Mostly I want the viewers of my work to create their own stories, I hope I can help my audience unlock their imagination.