Strange Rocks

Clayworks Gallery, Baltimore, MD

 

The strangest rocks I have ever seen are formed by water drops containing minerals, deep within mountains in hidden caverns. The sight of these rocks enters into my mind, cemented there by long stints of drawing on site. The images stay with me and I carry them to my studio, so my intuitive work is inevitably led by these impressions. I was a resident at Clayworks for 4 months and built several large sculptures in stoneware. Each piece is coil constructed and the process of meditatively making and then working the ropes of clay into convoluted formations, growing ever taller, is parallel to the original drawing process I start out with. The wood-fired sculptures render visual my recollections, much changed from the formations that inspire them, as they speak of hidden places and surprises found there. The 12-tablet stoneware book, Elusive is on the postcard of this show. This sculptural book carries my poem on its pages, putting some words to the states of mind that are so familiar in my studio.