I first fell in love with clay in high school, captivated by its immediacy and responsiveness to touch. As my skills developed, so did my wabi-sabi sensibility—an appreciation for imperfection, spontaneity, and the traces of the hand that remain embedded in the material. Clay, to me, was never just a medium but a living partner in the act of making.

In graduate school, I began to understand more clearly what drew me in: the movement and plasticity of clay on the wheel. I realized that what I wanted viewers to encounter in my finished work was not just a static pot, but the memory of motion—the tension, stretch, and flow that happens in the making. My “rock-hard pots,” as I once called them, are less about solidity and more about preserving the fleeting energy of clay in flux. In many ways, this pursuit resonates with what the last century of clay has been about, as artists such as George Ohr, Ken Ferguson, Paul Soldner, and Peter Voulkos redefined ceramics as vessels for expression, gesture, and vitality.

Clay itself embodies this paradox. It comes from the earth, often hard and unyielding like stone. Through human effort, it is pulverized, ground, refined, and rehydrated until it becomes supple again—capable of being stretched, folded, and coaxed into form. Then, through fire, it is returned to a hardened, stone-like state. My fascination lies in this cycle of transformation: how something so seemingly fragile in its soft state can be reborn as durable form, and how within that rigidity, the illusion of movement can still remain. Creating thin, delicate pieces that appear to shift or flow even after firing is what continues to drive me as an artist.

The series Life Vessels has been a particularly significant part of this journey. The idea first emerged during graduate school, though at the time I could not fully articulate its meaning. I revisited the theme briefly around the turn of the century, only to set it aside when life drew me in other directions. When I returned to clay in 2023, the forms resurfaced almost instinctively, as though waiting patiently for me to be ready. For a time, their meaning remained unclear, but in May of 2025 I experienced a revelation: these vessels were not merely formal explorations, but metaphors for life itself.

Each Life Vessel embodies the rhythms, ruptures, and relationships that shape our human experience. The holes carved into the forms speak to the losses we endure and the spaces left behind. The lines encircling the pots suggest the journeys we take, while the dents, marks, and dots recall the events that leave impressions upon us. The handles, and the relationships they form with one another, reflect the bonds that define our lives—whether with a spouse, parent, child, God, or something less tangible. Some handles connect harmoniously, forming symbiotic unions, while others jut against one another, perpendicular and tense, echoing the dissonance that can exist in human connection. Inside each piece, a spiraling lid descends into the pot like a tempest contained—a metaphor for the inner struggles and private storms we conceal from others, even from those closest to us.

Like life itself, these vessels are composed of many distinct parts, each carrying its own meaning, yet converging into a singular whole. Together, they tell stories that are deeply personal but also universally human.

The series unfolds across three bodies of work—Clay Bag, Unusable Teapot, and Tempest Bowl. Each subset highlights different facets of the human condition: the burdens we carry, the contradictions we embody, the storms we weather. Viewed together, they form a multi-layered portrait of life’s complexity, a meditation on fragility, resilience, and connection.