I fire a 125 cubic foot wood burning kiln, which I consider a partner in the work. Although I choose labor intensive methods, I consider myself a production potter. I make functional pots and consider the user the final contributer to the work. In the summer of 2009 I tore my old kiln down after about 18 years and 80 fires. I built a new two chamber woodburning kiln of my design. This kiln can be seen on a link from my web site.
Since childhood I’ve liked to make things. Over the years I’ve made houses, furniture, guitars, kilns, cars, motorcycles and many, many pots. I have worked variously as an auto mechanic carpenter, furniture maker and guitar maker as well as a potter.
I attended the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, majored in art and studied ceramics with Warren Mackenzie and John Reeve.
The pots I make are sturdy, bold, and reflect the processes of making them. Simple decoration enhances the rich surface created by long wood fires. The traces of the artist’s hand is both an antidote and protest to increasing uniformity. Impressions made in the soft clay reveal my tie to the work and to the landscape where it is made.

I strive to create forms that are full of life and communicate a sense of wholeness. The universal elements of earth, air, fire, water, and shapes from nature are sources of inspiration. I incorporate patterns found in nature in a rhythmic manner in the decoration process; a straight line or curve of a horizon, the positive and negative spaces created by a tree in winter, the intersection of water and the beach, or the repeating patterns found on a leaf or bird feather, the patterns of clouds in the sky or a collection of water worn stones from a stream.

The medium of clay records each and every touch. Whether it is the maker’s hand or from the river of flame, there is evidence of it all. My kiln is a collaborator. Indeed, the kiln is much like a living and breathing form during the firing. It is one of my partners.
Process is what all my work revolves about. All the work, from maintaining the kiln, wood preparation, clay and glaze preparation, making of the forms, loading and firing of the kiln, taken as a whole is what gives me creative nourishment. The end result is what we, as artists, are judged by, but without the process the end result has less meaning for me, the artist.