Other than lessons from a potter in Tokyo when I was 19, I’ve managed to avoid any formal instruction in ceramics. I abandoned throwing early on, preferring the freedom of handbuilding. I’m interested in forms with angles, planes, edges and edginess. Even so, I want to make everyday objects that perhaps go beyond everyday use.

I love what spawns in the friction between what I want the material to do and what it would rather do. The unintended result, often misread as a mistake and so dismissed, is one of the most fertile sources of new ideas.
Lots of these ideas come out of less conventional forming methods, like extruding, and unusual approaches to surface decoration, including stencils, slip inlay and stretched slabs. I want to let these processes show in my work. I try to keep out of clay’s way so that it does the speaking for me. That way the results stay fresh.

I take a lot of inspiration from something Constantin Brancusi wrote in 1927:
“Each material has its own life ... we must not try to make materials speak our language, we must go with them to the point where others will understand their language.”