I travel with some regularity. Early and late when the sun is slanted just so these strange shapes will pop against the landscape. These flashing shapes interest me because I can’t pin them down, they are gone too fast, lost in the blur. At times, I will squish the clay in my hands, forming rough knobs and twirls. Then I will let the clay dry and carve it away with a knife, the hard scraping following the twists and turns that I earlier embedded. Other times I will take the clay body and add aggregates, making the smooth body chunky and open, using sand, and mica and bits of already fired clay. I will make a smooth form and the scrape the top surface open, exposing the pits and dimples left behind. I often walk when I make the initial forms, the motion of my body through space allowing me to concentrate on the tactile rather than the visual.
