After receiving my BA in biology from Stanford, I took a year off to apprentice at a local pottery and have been working in clay ever since. I went back to art school (San Jose State and the Corcorran) between lab and teaching jobs and now work as an artist/potter. The science background actually has been useful both in glaze chemistry and in anatomy for sculpture as well as inspiration for odd swimming and flying things.

I started out in high fire reduction and while teaching at the Palo Alto Cultural Center produced a series of raku pots. I'm now enjoying cone 6 oxidation. It offers the durability of high fire and the expanded range of color of lower temperatures and no billows of dark smoke. Decoration is done both under and over the glaze, using slips, vitreous engobes and stains in combination with a few glazes. I'm continually experimenting.

Functional work is with a white stoneware and is completely lead free and dishwasher safe. I find it more of a challenge than sculpture, which is why I work a way at both.

My sculptures are fired at cone 6 (2200 F) using terra sigillata, vitreous engobes, glazes and stains to decorate. Most can be outside in our mild California climate. The parts are first thrown and then manipulated. The figures are of a pottery tradition, expanding from the inside, rather than carved away. They evolve as individuals during the working process much as a character in a story comes to be.

I have shown locally for over thirty years and am an exhibiting member of the Association of Clay and Glass Artists.