I recently realized that there is one very common thread between myself and my two sisters. We love being “cozy.” All our lives we have been drawn to things that make us feel warm and comforted. Things that are soft and inviting. While we can be exciting and adventurous women, we also love the balance of having a place to come home to that welcomes us with open arms and fluffy blankets. Without a doubt, this is one prominent inspiration to the forms I create.

With each pot I make I think of the customer and how it will feel for them to hold and use it. Will the mug warm their hands and will the handle feel balanced and smooth? Will the pot look and feel stable and supported? While I have experimented with the ornamental in the past, I have found myself wandering back towards forms that are paired down and invoke a sense of comfort and stability, pots that are grounded.

Glaze is also very important to my work because it helps me to use color and texture to transfer the emotions I get from my visual surroundings, from the places that make me feel comforted and whole. My intent is to bring to realization the brightness in the colors of nature. I am constantly inspired by the rolling hills, the blue skies, the green grass, the yellow sun and her flowers. Firing in the gas kiln seems like the natural choice. The glazes move and shift and have variation that I have not been able to reproduce in any other type of firing. I like to think that my glazes are like unique water color paintings that you get to eat and drink out of. I gravitate to the yellow and teal interiors. I think of them as my balance between sunshine and water, energetic and calm.

My pots give others an opportunity to have the same feelings sipping their coffee as I may have walking in the hay fields behind my house in Floyd.