Your work's right to exist doesn't depend on whether you've been validated, or trained, or praised, or paid. It depends on whether you show up for it.
Read MoreSovereignty. Oil on board, 2025.
The Passage, oil on hardboard. 2025.
It Looks So Real: How Much Realism Do You Need?
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?
Read MoreSigil tiles for Lughnasadh
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the sigil series lately. I especially enjoy making them in rhythm with the seasons—letting each one echo the mood of the turning year.
Lughnasadh is a time of harvest, of gathering what’s grown, and of giving thanks for all that has carried us this far.
Read More
The sigil, Peace, because presence begins with a benevolent gaze. Part of the ongoing Sigil series, 2025.
"Why All the Eyes?" The Eye of Providence and its Meaning
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...
Read More
“The Interstellar Traveler.” Black stoneware with engobe. 2025
If This Work Was Found in a Thousand Years
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….
Read More
Magnets I made a few years ago that were actually sigils but I didn’t know that’s what was channelling…. They’re made of Sculpey!
Continuity of Self
How is it possible to feel a “continuity of self” when all the cells in my body— with the exception of the lens of my eye— have regenerated more than once? I’m certain that I’ll still feel continuity of self when I’m 75.
Read More
A ceramic frame which will eventually have a drawing in the inner space.
More ideas for sigils...
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.
Read More
My 10-minute chalk doodle in the lobby of Marketview Arts, York PA. 2023.
On Creativity
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…
Read More
Slow Down, You Move Too Fast, 8” x 10”; 2023. Colored pencil and graphite. Remember that irrepressibly upbeat 60s song, “Feelin’ Groovy” by the band, Harper’s Bizarre? Aw yeah, baby.
Congruence
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…
Read More
The tile, Nimue. In Japanese culture, wabi-sabi— to “embrace the imperfect,” is often a rationale for repairing broken pottery (kintsugi). With this philosophy there’s less trauma when damage occurs, often with a highlighting of the imperfection as a kind of journey or experience of the object. This tile had too much fragmentation and still would have to be fired again to stoneware temperatures that I’ve decided to use the pieces as glaze-testing pieces instead.
On Perfectionism
Heartbreak is only temporary pain as I scoop the shattered bits of tiles into the dustpan or repair kiln shelves from the bubbled bits of glass fused to their surfaces. My heart begins to mend from the many failures with every dried bit of greenware I dump back into the clay reclamation bucket. Because with every failure, I earn an experience which teaches me something new about my craft.
Read More
Klaus' Greenman. 15" x 15". Red stoneware.
Curating a Life
A dear friend of mine passed away last year and he left an enduring mark on my life....
Read More
Bob Ross superimposed over his painting, Oak On a Clear Day.
Separating the Art from the Artist
Can we separate the artist from their output? Can we value the genius of an artist’s ouvre if the artist is a jerk? Conversely, if the artist is a genuinely stellar human being but their work is sort of meh, will their art be as memorable and legacy-worthy? I think this question merits real analysis because I think it sheds a lot of light on how art is consumed by the public. It’s always said that people don’t buy art, they’re buying the artist. But why?
Read More
Pressures, 51” x 14’. Graphite, charcoal, and synthetic resin on vellum overlays on Stonehenge, 2009. (The lighting in the room had a colored cast to it— but throwing the photo into B&W would have missed the yellowed tint of the vellum overlays.)
Pressures
Having had the span of a 13 year hiatus gave me the critical distance to finally understand this piece which has real importance to me as an artist and is significant to my life as a human.
Read More
A giant ram’s head mushroom, Grifola frondosa, or maitake.
Trusting Yourself
While art-making isn’t as high stakes as eating a wild mushroom, sometimes it can feel just as terrifying to “trust the process” when you don’t have a clue where your work is going or how you’ll get it where you want it to be.
Read More
The Meeting. Older women are wonderful mentors.
Mentors
Mentors are super important! If you don’t have one or several, get thee some right away. And if you have the chance to mentor someone else, it could greatly and positively impact their life in ways that can’t be quantified.
Read More
On Collaboration
Art collaborations are quite interesting. There’s Warhol & Basquiat, Dali & Buñuel, Björk & Barney, and the list goes on. Artists work together to stretch their abilities and techniques, and to gain important feedback about their work. In a collaborative visual artwork, you’re also “listening” to what the other artist is creating …
Read More
Sun streams in and illuminates the stained glass windows behind the stone sculpture of a saint. St. Joan on Arc Church, Hershey PA. Photo by Christine Chardo.
Culture and Aesthetics
If I wasn’t dozing off, I was taking note of the art in this church. Morning light streamed into the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows bursting with colored fragments, scattering light everywhere. Can we appreciate the aesthetics even though we no longer engage in the religious culture?
Read More
We have been stewards of this dear log house for 20 years.
The Log House
Laura Ingalls’ book and series, Little House on the Prairie, about her life as a pioneer, was an incredibly influential bit of literature for me in an important time in my life. Few books had such a lasting effect on me as this one did.
Read More
Monkeys as Judges of Art, 1889, Gabriel von Max
How to Deal with Critics
You know those people who sit in the stands and throw trash onto the field. They’re the ones who are verbally beating up the players, flinging invectives and general negativity. They’ve never been on the field. Never players. And yet they feel competent to criticize or judge something they themselves have never done…
Read More
The Banshees of Inisherin considers what is the spirit of Ireland and how civil war breaks so much.
Legacy
We sometimes hear people referring to their children and family surname as their “legacy” and this is an oft heralded achievement. But when artists use that word, legacy, it’s suspect. Is it because we’re not dead yet? Because we haven’t yet finished the work? Perhaps legacy is…
Read More