I hope you enjoy perusing the various galleries, including the gallery of student work. The very best record of my 33-year teaching career is the work produced by my students. My own ceramic work has changed a lot over the years, as is evident in a few samples arranged below in chronological order. My serious involvement in ceramics began at Humboldt State University in the late 60s and early 70s, where I learned the basics of throwing, glazing, and firing. In the mid-70s I became a studio potter, operating Railroad Stoneware in Blue Lake, CA, making functional wheel-thrown stoneware and porcelain. In 1985 my wife Linda, son Morgan, and I moved to Massachusetts for grad-school at UMass-Amherst. I was determined to make the most of the opportunity, and rather than continue what I already knew, I switched to handbuilding and developed slab-built sculptural work featuring intricate inlaid colored clay imagery. Over the next fifteen years I continued my exploration of colored clays in variations of sculpture and sculptural vessels. In my sixth year teaching at Tennessee Tech University’sAppalachian Center for Craft, the new millennium inspired a return to functional vessels.
My ceramic work is divided into six sections covered on different webpages. Click on the buttons above, or on Current and Recent Work, Colored Clay Vessels, Early Colored Clay Work, Slipware, and Railroad Stoneware. Scroll down on each page to see an explanation of materials, technique, and firing process. Additional technical information is provided on the Studio and Soda Kilnand Glazes I Use in Cone-7/8 Soda-Firing pages. The studio page includes images of my studio, recent soda firings, and the soda kiln construction. The Student Workpage includes work done by my students during my career at the Appalachian Center for Craft. Please email me if you have questions about any of the work or the kiln design and construction.
Below is a brief chronological tour of my work from 1983 to 2020. Click on thumbnails to see a larger image. Once you’ve enlarged the image, scrolling works best with the arrow keys on your keyboard.
