These past couple of year I have worked with juvenile girls in Toledo, Iowa creating artwork and speaking to them about who they are and what they would like to become. While doing that I learned from them and the experience not only in the home but through the drive to Toledo. I began to get transfixed by the beautiful landscape that this area of Iowa has and those hours of driving appeared in my artwork and still are showing their way through. As an artist trying to find her niche I would like to research the Iowa landscape and what it has to offer to me as a ceramic artist. The questions I have are how do I go about taking this route? Am I able to research this?

Landscape. Wood Fired Ceramic Platter. 2009.

This is one of the first may steps in my artwork. Taking a functional object and translating it into a sculpture piece. Functional Sculpture!

Artist Statement

My work is inspired by the vast rolling landscapes of the Midwest that surround me each

day. The tranquility found throughout nature’s landscapes is recreated in the physical

process of both my functional and sculptural art. I try to capture nature’s power and

spontaneity through exploration of clay’s physical properties and characteristics as well

as the process of atmospheric firing.

This body of work explores the subtle beauty of nature that is all too often overlooked

and cast aside in our hectic everyday lives. This combination of beauty and simplicity is

at the very center of my art. I look to and draw from the simplicity of overlapping hills

that form peaceful yet powerful landscapes, along with the raw beauty of natural forms

with in the landscape.