Have you ever thought about the different life you’d be living if you’d made one decision versus another? One path would take you down one life road and but another would perhaps lead you somewthere else. After you made your decision, would you still end up where you are? I think about this all the time and wonder about all the big (and potentially stupid) choices I made when I was young.
There was a poster hanging in the hallway at the art college I was attending for a call for artists/ artisans to come to New York City to apprentice as a mason/ sculptor on one of the cathedrals there in the city. (This was 1985, so perhaps one of my readers might remember which one was undergoing renovation at the time.) Under the headline, “Artisans Wanted!” there was a photo of the Capitoline Wolf against a red background:
The Capitoline Wolf, the symbol of Rome, the Eternal City. Twins Romulus and Remus, were later added to the piece. The 30” tall sculpture has been radiocarbon-dated to AD1050- 1150.
When no one was looking, I quickly removed the poster and absconded with it. Later, I thumb-tacked it to a wall in my room (I was living with my mother and stepdad at the time) and contemplated it for about 2 weeks. I thought: How cool would it be to learn how to sculpt in stone from real Italian masons and stone sculptors? The poster’s aesthetics completely sold me on the possibility that I could join the expert artists who were renovating a large building and learn to work as a stone sculptor and make gargoyles and such. How romantic! I was in!
Finally, I knew what I’d do! I would live in my van while I apprenticed with the stone masons in NYC! With very little in the bank, I figured it would be the cheapest way to go until I earned enough of a paycheck to rent an apartment. So I started packing my things into a suitcase. Living in NYC was never a conscious goal of mine, but the cathedral was there, the opportunity was calling, so I was willing to go and see what would come of it.
My mother’s head pops into view in the doorway and suddenly I’m jolted out of my dreaming of my future sculptor self and back into the present moment. She’s heard me bumping around and became curious about what I was doing, so I pointed at the poster and told her what my plans were. And so began a serious discussion about what can happen to an 18 year old girl living in a van in NYC… I mean, where do you even park your vehicle so it doesn’t end up on concrete blocks? Where does one shower? Logistics are important for safety. It didn’t once cross my mind that that I might be the only girl to show up on such a site or what that might mean. I didn’t consider what could happen. I only wanted to learn to sculpt like Bernini.
Logic and reason prevailed and so I didn’t go. Bummer. It’s interesting to think though what alternate universe I might be living in had I actually gone ahead with it… It makes me wonder about all the other seemingly simple but radical decisions I’ve made which have completely altered my life’s trajectory.
Does this make you wonder about your own?
If you could run away for just one day and do anything you wanted, anything at all, what would it be?
Most artists have been taught that self-critique means finding what's wrong and fixing it. But real self-critique isn't subtractive — it's gravitational. Here's how to find the signal that actually guides your best work.
Within a month I had more cleaning clients than I had hours for — so I gave the overflow to another person who needed a start, the same way my friend had given her clients to me. The demand didn't dry up. It never does.
I was testing new glazes — a project I've been building for months, reformulating my entire palette away from heavy metal oxides toward Mason stains. Safer chemistry. What I didn't anticipate was…
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A friend of mine and I have been arguing about realism in art. It started with a conversation about photo reference. It prompted a larger question in my mind: what makes realism meaningful in the first place? And how much of it does a viewer actually need?
In 2022, I wrote about beginning to make my own pottery glazes from raw materials. Commercial bottled glazes were convenient, but expensive, and I had an itch to develop something more personal. Over five years of experimentation, I’ve come to understand the qualities I’m after…
IlluXCon is always a wild, wonderful week—equal parts exhaustion and exhilaration. Held at the GoggleWorks in Reading, it fills three floors with some of the best Imaginative Realism artists working today, and I’m always grateful to be part of that creative storm. 2025 was no exception.
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The Manor Mill Gallery in Monkton, MD (say that fast three times!) was the perfect venue for From the Forest. Nestled in Maryland’s rolling hills, the Mill is surrounded by woodland and hiking trails—an ideal setting for a forest-themed show.
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Why do I sculpt so many eyes into my work? It’s a question I get asked a lot—sometimes nervously. The answer has more to do with protection, presence, and ancient symbolism than you might expect...
Scheduled for August 23rd, the exhibition, “Out of the Forest” will be held at Manor Mill Gallery in Monkton, MD. Some works in progress here.
When I made this piece, I started thinking differently about legacy. It’s not just about me lasting. It’s about us. I want humanity to survive this perilous moment we’re living through. I want us to make it to the other side of whatever this is….
The Sigils are evolving a bit into something intriguing and new. I’m planning on offering a set to mark the eight seasons of the year’s Wheel. Litha, or Midsummer, is coming up on June 21st, representing the vibrant season of light, zenith, celebration, and radiance.
I’d never made a yarn bowl before so when a fan of my work asked me to make her some, I was intrigued with the challenge.
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Asimov’s I, Robot stories; the idea of positronic brains, the laws of robotics, etc., fascinated me. I loved the mix of complex ancient civilizations, philosophy, and science fiction. His writing made the potential exploration of worlds by future beings seem so vast and interesting.
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What has become pretty clear to me is this: Artists who use their work or others’ work to train an AI to spit out images for them to paint are completely missing the real value of what they potentially could get from working with an AI assistant.
The gallery, Manor Mill in Monkton, MD, has invited me to participate in their group invitational show, “Out of the Forest” this August.
Some time ago, my friend, Marian, asked me to make a sigil tile for her. What the heck was that? I thought. A sigil, or “seal” is a magical symbol of a desired outcome based on a word.
Lately, I’ve been adding videos of my sculpting process on my YouTube channel. I uploaded this one in February after firing a huge batch of mugs.
I’ll be attempting to provide you with shorter blog posts more frequently— once or twice a week — to fill you in on what’s happening in my studio.
Recently, I downloaded the ChatGPT app to see what all the fuss was about and I was pleasantly surprised at how immediately the AI made itself useful…
Recently, I sold this little piece and was quite happy to hear that the buyer was someone who was familiar with my ceramics (they have a handful of monsterpots) but was totally unfamiliar with my drawings and paintings…
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"Is art school worth it?" is the wrong question — it assumes worth can be measured before you know what you're shopping for. Drawing on three very different schools and what each one actually delivered, here's a better way to figure out what you need before you enroll in anything.