Ceramic Art

My return, after decades, to make ceramic art was inspired by my sad, bare yard. The back of our home faces a small wood and a creek inhabited by a myriad of hungry wildlife. My garden efforts are a free banquet for the deer, wild turkeys, rabbits, and more. Wildfires and drought are additional challenges. Thus, my ceramic totems and pots with their attached flowered lids now propagate my garden. My art themes reverence Mother Nature with a bow to tribal and ancient civilizations. I have always been thrilled by pottery from the Jōmon period (14,000–400 BC Japan) with their Dogū humanoid and animal figurines. My modest, yet protective, totems are conduits that reach from the earth to the sky. All the structures are hand built using coils, slabs, pinch pots, and smooshes. The surface details are brushed on with different colored glazes. Flowers and leaves attach with copper wire.