Artist Statment

Nature has always been the at the center of my work. I often use wild clays and other natural materials as a medium to sculpt with. When I’m not using materials I have sourced from the earth, I’m making work inspired by it.

Having grown up by the ocean and now being an artist in costal Florida, I use the sea as a starting point for my ideas. Anything from the humblest microorganisms to the most revered fish in the sea are a constant source of inspiration. Whether I am making anatomically correct versions of sea creatures or using an abstracted version of their forms in a sculpture, the fluid nature of all ocean species comes to life in clay.

The more I studied marine biology for my work, the more I marveled at it and desired to have another dimension of interaction in my work. I have begun making ceramic sculptures and submerging them underwater to serve as artificial marine reefs. This provides a habitat for the very creatures I am so inspired by.

There is something ephemeral and beautiful about borrowing a material from the earth and transforming it into art; something that is so undeniably human, and then yielding ownership back to the earth for it to be retaken and transformed.