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My early history involved pottery study at Philadelphia College of Art, Penland School of Crafts and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Interest in Japanese and British pottery began at the inception of my career, when I studied with and later apprenticed to American potter, Byron Temple. Byron Temple had apprenticed to British potter, Bernard Leach. Leach’s technical and aesthetic blending of Eastern and Western traditions was passed on to me as a means of making pottery objects for daily use. Graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and further study with artist Richard DeVore brought a broadening of my perceptions and aesthetic perspective to include a wider range of artistic references from many cultures throughout the history of human development. Following receipt of my MFA, I moved to New York in 1973 and with the assistance of an early NEA Fellowship, established a studio in the Soho District of Manhattan, where I still live and work. I chose to live in New York City initially because I wanted to make useable pottery that was contemporary in feeling and related to the energy of modern urban culture as well as to have ready access to the New York contemporary art dialogue and to major museum collections for study reference. |
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During the past 36 years my work has evolved through the limited production of porcelain dinnerware and accompanying service pieces to include situational arrangements of functional forms on trays in service to formal dining ritual. These specialized service groupings have further metamorphosed to become non-functional formal sculpture. Both of these bodies of work have been exhibited in museums and galleries in America, Europe and Japan. I have lectured, conducted workshops, and taught as guest artist/critic in many programs here and abroad, including Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, France Japan and China. I have organized and conducted several pottery trips to China, and traveled in 1991 as a distinguished American pottery specialist for The United Nations to an international ceramics symposium in Beijing. Making my first trip to Japan during the summer of 1990, I participated in the IWCAT program (International Workshop in Ceramic Art at Tokoname). It proved to be a serendipitous life altering experience. |
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