ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Working with terra cotta, I hand-build boxes and wallpieces from slabs that are cut into shapes and then stamped. When the piece is dry it is painted with white underglaze and then washes of colored underglaze are painted on. The piece is then fired. This technique accents the textured surface, and because it is unglazed, suggests a stone-like carved surface, similar to the detail work in Moorish architecture.

Several of the pieces here are underglaze paintings on clay slabs which include a story or prose poem I have written. Here the words are painted on, and then re-painted in wax resist, the figure is then painted and the letters remain obvious.

The grey plasticene clay, which never dries out, is the clay I first played with when I was about five years old. I'd make clay people who'd be eaten by a clay shark, or a clay spaceship with creatures that would crash-land and then be eaten by a clay shark...eventually, I made a human cadaver, complete with all the organs. Almost everything I needed to know I learned then, most importantly: that I loved making things out of clay.

I have work in the A Show of Hands stores in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinatti. During the summer I participate in the summer Art and Craft shows in Ohio and other neighboring states.

My studio is in an old warehouse in the midtown corridor of Downtown Cleveland, and is open for a visit. I'm almost always there, but call first: (216) 579-9263. The studio address is 2570 Superior Avenue, 6th Floor Studio, Cleveland 44114-4232.