My work is technically quite traditional. Most of it is thrown on the potter’s wheel, and all of it is salt-glazed. I use the directness of the wheel and of vapor glazing because they are tools and processes I feel comfortable with. My primary concern is a direct form of expression. I see my successful pieces as visual objects, individual, personal, tactile. They are hollow and can contain. Many have direct functional applications, but for me their primary purpose is to express and function visually. I suppose that in many ways I am more interested in the painterly or sculptural aspects of the piece than I am in whether it is ‘pottery’ in a traditional functional way. Our present world is filled with useful things which have little or no aesthetic value. I try to make a relatively small number of objects which have primarily aesthetic value.

Pitcher, in the State Art Collection was done on 1970-71. It is a wheel-thrown, salt-glazed stoneware pitcher (which doesn’t drip) with free brush decoration and slips and oxide washes.