Brown Joy

A child of medical missionaries to Japan, I spent eighteen years of my life there.
After college in the United States, I returned to Japan to work as an apprentice in pottery for four years. In the rigorous discipline of a traditional Japanese apprenticeship, working with clay became a way of life.
During that time I was required to make thousands of cups, never firing one.
Submission to the demands of this process tought me the technical skills, a disciplined concentration, and an understanding of and respect for the clay.
It also taught me that my experience while working with clay is just as important as the finished piece. Whether it is a pot or a sculpture, ceramic or bronze, the piece will reflect the spirit in which it was made.
I now work in Kent, Connecticut, where I built a 28-foot-long Japanese style anagama wood-firing kiln. A year of my work is fired at once, in an intense 24-hour-a-day, week-long firing. The resulting warm rich colors and rugged texture are gifts of heat and ash to the clay, bringing life to the unglazed forms.