Artist Statement

As the son of a graphic designer and screen printer, the environment to create was always available as a child in the studio. For the most part up in until college I only worked within two-dimensional mediums. But three-dimensional mediums always seem to strike my interest. I was introduced to the ceramic art world upon entering college. At Franklin Pierce University, the ceramics program is mainly wheel based. I was attracted to wheel based ceramics because of the concentration one needed to have in order to make a piece and the relaxation it gave me when creating that piece. Ceramics spoke to me because of its tactile qualities as well as being a three dimensional medium that could be used in some way.  I started mimicking forms to understand the history of throwing, the basics of throwing and how to make pieces functional. Many of my earlier works were like many other potters, heavily influenced by British Stoneware potters such as Bernard Leach. My first ceramic professor was a production potter making mainly functional pieces. I enjoyed creating these pieces but after a while creating these basic shapes became somewhat boring to me. I didn’t feel like I was using my artistic ability to the fullest extent. Then I realized that through ceramics I could also express my artistic vision and aesthetic. I would soon learn that there was more to the ceramic world then just functional work. During a semester abroad in Greece I was strongly influenced by historical Greek pottery. The forms they created served a specific purpose and function, but from those forms a certain sophisticated nature can be felt. This idea that pottery could be made to provide an ordinary function but have an unordinary form and inventiveness to it really got me interested. Through my own work I hope to convey a sophisticated yet unordinary nature, while still serving a specific function.

Currently I am making a series of tall bottle or vase vessels. These vessels have curves that taper inward leading you to sharp edges that I have intentionally left on the pieces. I want these pieces to be viewed together in groupings of three or five. As someone views this work they will see that the orientation of where those curves and sharp angles are on the pieces are at different heights. This creates a conversation of movement between the groupings of vessels. Not only have I created these tall forms, I have also created more functional and ordinary forms such as mugs, pitchers and bowls that were inspired and include those same curves and sharp edges.

I enjoy inventing and creating new forms that have never been thought of while still providing a function. Hopefully the person using my own work to complete that certain function will sit back and look at my work as a piece of artistic work as well.