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After working in ceramics for over 40 years, I am revisiting watercolor painting. Its spontaneous, free-flowing qualities stir a fresh array of emotions and creative energies in me. I delight in its crisp, fluid surprises, so distinct from the usual tactile plasticity of clay. Both mediums, however, require equal vigilance and focus.
I like to make people think. I suppose that’s why I am drawn to people who teach me, because they set me free and I love them like no one else. My educational background includes undergraduate work in art school and philosophy/religion, a Masters in theology, and a PhD in Ancient Israel and Early Christianity with cognate field in Communication Studies/Rhetoric. I currently teach hand-building at the Spokane Potters’ Guild and am part of Hospice of Spokane’s chaplain team. I am aware that my life has been shaped and influenced by both my education and culture. I look at the world through my own situated lens.
My art is about the dancing of an attitude. An attitude that I bring to the art-making process as a result of my interaction with my subject matter and materials. I enjoy looking for the unexpected connection between things, not for what they show me, but for what they conceal about their hidden potential.
Art is a means of communication. It is participatory, inviting viewers’ reactions, questions and the possibility of accepting its truth. The response of the viewer, myself included, helps illuminate what affects an art piece generates. It is through such participatory responses that I become most fully aware of the attitude I was dancing! Such engagement becomes self-revelatory.
I have learned to trust the creative process. I trust that however a piece evolves is exactly how it was meant to be with me. I trust that my life experiences have brought me to this place where this particular art expression is unfolding. I also teach and share from this situatedness. When I approach art-making as dynamic, evolutionary process, I don’t have to wait for inspiration, I awaken to it, it finds me, and through such interaction the dancing continues.
I like to make people think. I suppose that’s why I am drawn to people who teach me, because they set me free and I love them like no one else. My educational background includes undergraduate work in art school and philosophy/religion, a Masters in theology, and a PhD in Ancient Israel and Early Christianity with cognate field in Communication Studies/Rhetoric. I currently teach hand-building at the Spokane Potters’ Guild and am part of Hospice of Spokane’s chaplain team. I am aware that my life has been shaped and influenced by both my education and culture. I look at the world through my own situated lens.
My art is about the dancing of an attitude. An attitude that I bring to the art-making process as a result of my interaction with my subject matter and materials. I enjoy looking for the unexpected connection between things, not for what they show me, but for what they conceal about their hidden potential.
Art is a means of communication. It is participatory, inviting viewers’ reactions, questions and the possibility of accepting its truth. The response of the viewer, myself included, helps illuminate what affects an art piece generates. It is through such participatory responses that I become most fully aware of the attitude I was dancing! Such engagement becomes self-revelatory.
I have learned to trust the creative process. I trust that however a piece evolves is exactly how it was meant to be with me. I trust that my life experiences have brought me to this place where this particular art expression is unfolding. I also teach and share from this situatedness. When I approach art-making as dynamic, evolutionary process, I don’t have to wait for inspiration, I awaken to it, it finds me, and through such interaction the dancing continues.