Original Tile Art and Handmade Bowls

I am an artist living in my adopted home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan - School of Art, where I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1987. After graduation, I moved to Los Angeles, Detroit, Phoenix, and finally, in 2001, to Albuquerque, where I found a welcoming community of other Albuquerque artists. Along the way, I have shown my artwork in galleries, art fairs, and competitions in Michigan, Florida, Washington D.C., Arizona, and New Mexico.

My main focus has been on a series of original tile art mosaics titled "View From Above: Midwest." The imagery I use is an abstraction of the view I have from the window of an airplane. From there, it's possible to see the patterns that are created by the irrigation systems that are common to the farming areas in the Midwestern part of the country. The patterns appear to be a grid of large squares containing concentric circular lines. My first few tile mosaics using this theme incorporated a realistic earth toned color palette. In my more recent pieces I have chosen to alter the colors of the tile patterns to more specifically describe a particular place that I have visited, or a particular time of day in which the colors are especially beautiful to me.

My hope is that the viewer will spend a little time enjoying the beauty of the colors I have chosen. For me, they serve as a reminder that it's a good idea to appreciate the transient nature of the things I enjoy in life. To really value and experience what I have in the time that I have it.

When I'm in between making the mosaics, I also enjoy working on some functional pieces. I find that they give me a much needed respite from the grid. I enjoy playing with shape and color in a variety of ways and really exercising my skills with a technique called slip casting. It involves making a plaster mold, casting liquid clay (slip) into it, and then firing and glazing the resulting piece. I find it very satisfying to think of new and unusual ways to utilize this technique. My current group of slip cast objects is a series of handmade bowls of various sizes that are both useful and fun to look at.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my work. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.