About My Work

It is my goal to be in control of my entire craft, not only how I manipulate materials but as much as possible. I built my shop, my anagama, my wood-salt and gas reduction kilns, my slab roller and a pug mill. I mix my own clays and glazes and try to use local materials as much as I can. I aim to choose where, how and with what I make my work.

About 95 percent of my work begins on an English treadle wheel. I work by making small groups of similar forms, three jars, six pitchers, a dozen cups, usually throwing one or two back in the clay bin. Working in this way helps me to get the form right and encourages evolution of my forms. I am influenced by many traditions and while there are certainly references to historical pots, I am not interested in making reproductions. I try to make pots quickly and directly enough to achieve a vitality of form without being too mannered about it. Wood firing enhances this, creating lively surfaces which are never the same from pot to pot and kiln to kiln, surfaces which speak of the clay and the fire, of material and process. The pots often seem old to me but at the same time contemporary. The best of them achieve a kind of timelessness.

The anagama (cave kiln) is most likely the oldest high temperature kiln design, probably originally, just a cave dug into a river bank with a hole at the back to act as a chimney. Mine is made of modern refractory firebrick.  The anagama firings last five days using about 6-7 cords of wood. These are group firings  with about 15 potters and friends participating who bring work to help fill it. The kiln holds around 500 pieces on average. As we fire, fine wood ash and volatile chemicals from the wood are carried through the kiln with the flames and, in time, create natural ash glazing and flashed color on the forms. Pots near the fireboxes have more melted ash effects while the more protected pots can vapor glaze or flash. By choosing a particular clay and which zone of the kiln the pots are loaded in and how they are oriented towards the flame we can hope for certain effects, but often what we hoped for is not what we see when we unload, which can be wonderful or disappointing.

The wood-salt-glaze kiln is usually a one day firing using a little more than one cord of wood. All the fuel is waste wood, scraps from local wood shops, pine beetle-killed pine trees and the occasional windfall. These renewable sources of fuel are usually free, but require a tremendous investment in labor to prepare and use. That said, the process is enjoyable, especially the anagama group firings and the occasional jewel that comes out of the kiln make it all worthwhile.

There are always surprises when a wood-fired kiln is unloaded. Often the pots look much different than expected and it takes a while to come to appreciate them. It has been a lesson in learning to see them for what they are rather than how they measure up to my expectations. I enjoy the ‘letting go of control’ aspect of wood firing and the fact that the process insures that each piece will be unique. The visual and tactile layers of information, from the textures and marks of the wheel and tools, to the cracking slip, wet ash or flashing from the fire and salt, remind me of the way we might read a landscape for its geologic-ecologic story. The layers of process may harmonize or conflict with each other and, in doing so, suggest a kind of evolution, the pot’s own story.

Finally, I make pots to be used. Mostly they are modest sized forms for cooking, serving, for keeping things and for flowers. I want them to be used. I believe that a handmade pot only fully communicates as it is being used and that the best pots continue to reveal themselves over time. I hope the people who buy my pots or get them as gifts find that using them makes the simple everyday acts of eating, drinking and sharing food more special than they might have been.

Biography

I grew on the plains of Kansas and attended the University of Kansas and Bethany College where I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art in 1970. Following that, at Indiana University I received the Master of Fine Arts Degree in Ceramics in 1974. I moved to Macon, Georgia where I taught ceramics, drawing and design at Mercer University 1974 to 2009 when I retired to work full time in my studio.

My interest in firing with wood began in the 1970’s when my students and I began making burnished forms of local clay which were fired in a bonfire. In 1984 I built my first high-fire wood fired kiln at Mercer which we enjoyed firing every term.  In 1986 I was invited to help Frank Boyden and Tom Coleman fire the East Creek Anagama in Oregon, a life changing experience which led ultimately to my building my own anagama.

In 1988 my wife Sherrie and I moved to a new home near Juliette, GA where I built a studio and began firing salt glazed ware in a small wood-burning kiln. I have operated a wood-fire pottery there since then.  In 2000 I built a 250 cu. ft. Japanese style anagama kiln which is fired for up to 5 days with wood alone in order to achieve unique natural ash glazing effects.  I replaced the wood-salt kiln with a larger one in 2010 and built the gas kiln in 2015.

.