Sculpture Statement
September 2019
Like pictographic symbols, my ceramic sculptures convey patterns in nature through a language of geometric visual signs. Gestural, vertical compositions of hollow forms evoke distant horizons, mountain ridges, vertical strata of earth or canyons formed by water. Balancing distinct silhouettes with shadowy passages into unseen interior spaces, my sculptures mimic nature’s dance of hiding and revealing.
My process of sculpting is haptic — an intuitive dialogue between my body (with its memories and associations) and the clay form (with its texture and hollowness). To create a sculpture I begin with a simple, flat pattern, guided by a sketch or by a scientific image of a plant. Within the limitations I set out for myself, I grow the form by adding “coils” of clay bit by bit, adding and subtracting, building upon predominant movements and shapes that arise from the pattern of the base. As the form expands upward, I develop relationships of interior to exterior, light to shadow, ground (below) to sky (above), drawing in part from a form-language of circular balls, horizontal strata, and droplet-shaped cut-outs of the surface.
While my entry point for building sculptures are abstract formal relationships, my vision is informed by my practice of drawing from nature, particularly from superabundant environments such as forests. Drawing, I create a luminous surface from an aggregate of marks, reflecting an internalized experience of what I have observed. The natural motifs and habits of expression that I have cultivated through drawing guide the manifestation of my sculptures.