Southgate, KY

My work is designed to be simple, lightweight, comfortable, and appealing to the eye with my various selection of colorful glazes (and underglazes). I enjoy making everyday dishes, such as mugs, cups, bowls, plates, pitchers, and bottles. My pottery is primarily wheel-thrown, created with white or speckled stoneware, and is all food, dishwasher, & microwave safe. I fire my work in an electric kiln to cone 6 (around 2232 degrees Fahrenheit) in an oxidation atmosphere.

My primary style of working is in batches of 20-30 pieces at a time that look similar, but not exact from one to another. I’ve enjoyed adding some new techniques into my toolbelt over the past year or so while adding a line of sgraffito work to my product line. Where the production work relies on the glazing techniques to stand out, the sgraffito pieces rely on efforts made during the throwing & leatherhard stage to produce the end result. Glazing is easier on these pieces, but they require me to slow down and focus on each piece. Since these forms take longer to produce, I have to be more selective which ones I’d like to add to this product line as it grows.

View Artist Website

Images of Work

Techniques

Wheel Thrown Pottery
Sgraffito

Favorite Products

Speedball bats: I really love the size, snug fit, and subtle flexibility of these bats. They fit nicely on a ware board when I’m throwing a batch of 15-20 bowls, spoon rests, mugs, etc when I can’t easily lift them off the wheel while the clay is freshly thrown. Once the clay gets close to leatherhard, I like to give the bat a slight ‘flex’ to help lift the pot off the bat enough to not stick to the remaining clay on the bat. This technique works really well on the 12” or 14” bats for plates also. I rarely have issues with removing plates from these bats when the clay is close to leatherhard.

Speedball underglazes: I haven’t used underglazes a ton since sgraffito is somewhat new to my designs. I primarily use black slip for my carved designs, but I’ve started adding in some colored underglazes from Speedball as I expand these designs. The underglaze colors are rich, easy to apply, affordable, and the end result is great with my clear glaze. I especially love their wide selection of colors, including their 12 newest colors (Teal & Peach are my favorites). All of my underglaze is applied at a hard-leatherhard state so I can carve through once the underglaze dries.