2012- Concepts of Place
My earthenware pots began with the house on Seminole Road which my family lived in for a short time. It was built in the 1920’s; with orange groves behind it and Crooked Lake down the hill. The house, beginning to fall apart as we were living in it, was frequently visited by uninvited animals and volunteer plants. I began to draw the plants and animals I encountered there, being interested in their shapes, textures, and occasional unexpected interactions with the human occupants. Influenced by botanical prints, these drawings continue to evolve and have become part of my ceramic surfaces.
The house now stands empty. Like the home next door to it, and many others in central Florida, the owners were no longer able to make payments on it when the housing bubble burst. The walls of my pots serve as domestic canvases. They ask ‘what if’, proposing a narrative of what might occur in the homes and yards that have been vacated. Likewise they ask 'what is'- what is one's relationship to a place, and how might any particular point in time effect that relationship?
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The vessels are primarily formed with a potter’s wheel, edges are deckled with my fingertips, and slab made appliqué is added on. The handled and ‘imperfect’ forms reflect a melancholy of a home that has been left, perhaps falling into disrepair. Simultaneously contrasting with this are the surfaces; overtaken by joyous, lively plant and animal life.