Once while at a “Dancer Day of Health” during my career as a dance artist, the in-house therapist told me that it sounds like I’m in desperate need of a hobby. She wasn’t wrong. To make it in that life it takes a particular type of fixation. I said I think I’d like to try pottery, and as soon as I did a new obsession was born. After retiring from touring life, I put the same fervor into all things clay, this time with a focus on the items that bring us together in the home, and making it special and beautiful.

I like to make pieces to use at the table. It’s the place where everyone gathers, and when the food we eat and wine we drink has been made by someone’s hand it makes sense to also have the vessel it’s served in have a story as well. My work is never perfect, the oddities of a human touch and the irregularities of a gas kiln are far better than the sameness of a machine-made product.

The world of performing and teaching dance offered a very unique human connection, and I feel I’ve found a new and different avenue for this through creating pieces that people use in their daily rituals. The timing is asynchronous, and the permanence of a piece that you hand off to someone makes me feel like I’m naked in public, but collecting the works of others links us. The more I make ceramics, the more I want to gather everyone else’s. It’s a fun little hobby that sure beats a trip to a big box store.