Token Language, ceramic
the line between those two is really
important to me.
That makes a lot of sense because
you do have a lot of sharp edges with
more natural, not necessarily rough,
but more organic edges.
Right. We idealize a lot of things, and
I don’t want to say that I kind of point
at or laugh at those but I definitely
want to draw into question idolatry
or reaching for ideals. And let’s bring
us back down to earth and look at the
other side of the coin. Visual media
is so fun because it gives you the opportunity to do that without having a
bunch of words get in the way. Sometimes my titles will point in the direction of what my work is getting at,
but then those tend to shift with my
thinking as well, which is kind of fun.
I could imagine that it would be
hard to give titles to your work without giving too much away.
I’ve really begun to love titling the
work. Sometimes I will make work
based on a title, or at least challenge
myself to do as much. But often times
the process of making the work I
begin to make correlations between
either objects or cultures, whether
those are buildings, or
cycles, or behaviors. My
thoughts on those tend to
crop up a little bit in my
titling.
What made you decide to
hang some of your heavy
ceramic pieces on the
wall?
Oh gosh. I think about
caves and photographs of
mountainsides or when
you’re driving down the
highway
that
they’ve
been making by blowing
Orlando’s Art Scene
the rock of the face of the mountain, something about that mass of
rock jutting from an otherwise clean
planar surface is amazing to me. So
I made it a personal challenge over
the past year or so to be able to get
away from the floor or the pedestal
and to get the work on the wall. Not
only for ease of placement in terms of
homes, not a lot of people have room
for sculpture, let’s solve that problem,
but more than that. My visceral response to seeing rock jutting out of
the wall in an otherwise clean environment is really meaty to me and it
makes me happy.
than Florida and I romanticize those.
I don’t have to live in the mountains;
I don’t have to deal with the small
patch of sky or big fucking boulders
in my yard that I don’t want there. To
some degree, making the work that
feels like big jagged stones is like the
countryside or part of the world that
I don’t live in.
It’s like bringing the rest of the
United States to you.
Yeah, I can’t necessarily go there all
the time so I will bring it to me.
Tell me a little bit about your career
as an artist. Where did you start and
You don’t see that in Florida, so it’s how did you end up with ceramics
interesting that that inspires you.
being a predominant form of your
And I love that you say that because so art?
many people are like ‘Oh, you know I stumbled into making pottery in
I’m inspired by my environment’ and high school classes and it wasn’t until
of course I’m inspired by my envi- a couple of years outside of that that
ronment but I’m more inspired to go I realized I really enjoyed what I was
to the beach than I am to make work doing and was invested in it. I spent a
about the beach. We talked about ro- number of years doing markets, fairs
manticizing things. I see all the pic- and festivals, selling functional work.
tures of Utah, I’ve been to Washington It wasn’t until probably a good eight
State, I’ve been to a number of beau- years into pottery making that I starttiful mountainous regions where the ed pushing the boundaries of what
landscapes are completely different was functional or what was useful and
was thinking a lot more about
Excavation(s)IV, ceramic & oxide pigment the materials I was working
with and melting. Just having
fun making a mess with it.
I know that you’ve done
some sculpture work outside
of ceramics; do you want to
talk about that at all?
I would love to do more
sculpture work outside of ceramics. I find myself drawn
back to the work that I’m
doing. A, because I love it
and B, because the ability
to market work, the ability
to make work that is an ob24