I am a potter and sculptor, 50 years of practice and still counting. It’s pretty amazing to consider how many tons, yes tons, of clay have gone through my hands with the  processes of making, turning, firing and finishing.

I was lucky to go to undergraduate school at UCSB at a time when all kinds of art conventions were being turned upside down and re-invented. Ceramics was influenced by Japanese traditions, western European aesthetics, but also presented as a personal, expressive medium. My teachers were strong influences and inspired travels all over the world, looking at various cultures, meeting remarkable craftsmen and women and affirming the choice to work in clay for the rest of my life.

Graduate school took me to Boulder, Colorado, where a dynamic landscape and exposure to earlier people and life ways kept things rocking and rolling. It was possible to get a job teaching , set up a studio and make a living as a potter. There were supportive galleries and friends with the knowledge to design and build kilns; shows all over the country and even an invitation to show in Japan kept me pretty darn busy. I always kept walking, learning, growing and even singing!

In 2006, I moved with my family, a whole lot of books, bricks, tools and raw materials-the contents of a studio and pieces of a home, to southwest Colorado. We bought a beautiful piece of land with a view to the San Juan mountains, Mesa Verde and one huge bowl of sky.

Over the next few years we built a house, studio, gardens and orchard. Now I have a remarkable  lifestyle, with little reminders of those who walked here before; a pottery sherd, a piece of worked stone, appears on the ground on every walk  around the property.

Workshops, field schools, volunteer opportunities have led me down a path to become a avocational archeologist; I have happily volunteered to help with Rock Art recording projects and have filled journals and notebooks with writing and drawings from all over the world. Potters tend to be pretty good cooks and often spend time in the garden, growing flowers for vases, vegetables for beautiful meals; having an orchard means harvesting all kinds of fruit for jams and condiments and finding ways to store and serve all that abundance.

I am the daughter of a Holocaust survivor Mom and a Father with intellectual gifts and a great sense of humor. They both set aside their own creative aspirations and supported their children’s education and often challenging journey in the world. All I can do is say thank you.