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.
Read MoreBisqued planter cauldrons with applied oxides. 2021.
Current New Work: March 2025
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.
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
Wonderful Commission Work, Part 2: Spring
Summer is the second panel in the Seasons series for my friends, a lovely couple who now live in Arkansas. We met several years ago at an art conference and they were there as avid fans of imaginative realist art. They found my work and subsequently invited us to visit them. Sometime after that, they commissioned this series.
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
“Family crest” stamps for a couple to be married in Ecuador. These will be used by a potter there to create a set of platters and cups for their household. 2023. These were sculpted or carved into terra cotta clay and then fired for hardness so they can be used again and again.
Pottery stamps and press molds
One of the challenges I faced while making ceramics over the past several years is how to re-create something as it was the first time. Someone will say— “Oooh, I love that!” and want the same thing. This is where molds and stamps come in handy….
Read More
Lotus moonpot, 2022.
Moonpots: the construction method
When I was a kid, I was more than slightly obsessed with little boxes of any sort. Then, I didn’t know for certain why. Perhaps because they held my most important treasures and keepsakes; I stashed….
Read More
DIY Easel Upgrade
My oak easel, bought back in the early 90s when I was just starting out as an illustrator, while sturdy, was really only meant for lightweight canvas duty or for smaller boards. So, when I started working on heavier panels, I had a problem with the tray slipping…
Read MoreConGlomeration Art Awards
Making the award sculptures for ConGlomeration’s Art Show was a fantastic time. Being given carte blanche meant I could just have a blast imagining anything at all…
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
Depression
The point is, no one knows what their life is going to be like 10, 20, or 30 years from now. But you’ve got to stick around to find out.
Read More
Little Kingdom, graphite; Arches mounted to hardboard, 12”. 2023.
Clearing Up A Misconception
I meet someone at a gathering and they find out I’m an Artist. Before I can get even one word out about what kind of work I do, they start telling me about a painting— a painting! they saw at some gallery or show or arts collective. But they didn’t buy it and now it haunts them. They don’t know how to track down the artist but they snapped a photo of the artwork. Breathlessly, with hope in their eyes, they ask me…
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 MoreChickens are Just Tiny Dinosaurs
Holy heckin’ heck. In one month, my life’s been turned upside down. I’ve never been an early morning person, but since we’ve gotten our chickens, getting out of bed at 530 to greet them at rosy-fingered dawn with musical wakey-wakeys and a tray of their favorite things …
Read More
The graphic novel, Volume 1, Lost In Dreams: A Father’s Love, page 101. Digital, 2015.
Lost In Dreams
I’ve done only one graphic novel. It was 104 pages long. In the 2 years (nearly) it took me to complete it, I learned that while I had a great deal of fun (and really became proficient at Photoshop), I wouldn’t (probably?) do another one. At least that’s what I say now. Never say never?
Read More