Clay is a beguiling material, tactile and mesmerizing to work with. It can be frustrating and demanding but endlessly versatile. I fell in love with it at Carson Graham High School, and at 16, I wanted to be a potter but many other roads beckoned.
I spent years driving taxis, city buses and tour buses. I spent nearly a year in the Yukon and a full year in South America. A short flight to Haida Guaii in 1975, in a beautiful, vintage Grumman Goose, enticed me into a 5-year pursuit of a flying career. I tended bar and for a year I operated a huge camera with 10 foot bellows and a separate dark room.
In 1990 I became a Ceramics Technician at Capilano College in North Vancouver thus fulfilling my potter’s dream. Other than high school, clay has been in my blood since 1981. Most of the work is on the wheel some of which is altered and assembled into larger pieces. I do some hand-building too. The driving force for me is colour, sometimes pure copper red and other times layered glazes which can make one glaze appear to float over another or create a “hares fur” effect. Then there is Shino and carbon trap Shino; a true chameleon.
I arrived on the Coast with my partner Lynda in 1999. In 2000 I built a 28 cubic ft. gas kiln at our home in Roberts Creek. About once a month pyromania sets in and I fire the kiln and with a little prayer to the kiln goddess I unload a bounty of pots.
