These Covidian Times

1992-94 Seattle, Washington. I crossed over the continent in the summer of '92 to do my Master's at the University of Washington. I am sparing you the first series of work I did in Seattle, it was just plain weird. In this next work series, created in the fall of '92, I was trying to reduce my scale and to use a more sensual approach to building the forms, rather than a literal application of the goddess imagery. So these forms were hand built out of a lot of little slugs (puffed hollow) of clay. I made candleholders and ewers...

Halifax, 1992. For the next few years I explore the idea that decoration is a language and language defines who we are. I go about deconstructing and constructing the vessel (as metaphor for the human form) by physically building it out of the decorative goddess motifs. The next few bodies of work all work from this premise: that language defines our selves. These pictures were from an exhibition called Pillar to Pots. Over the course of 7 days a large pillar transforms in to three Fraggle Rock looking vessels. Large rings of carved clay stack in to the pillar and...

13/31 I have a bit of a thing for numbers. January always marks a month of anniversaries for me. 13 years ago this month the sale of my building here in Williamsburg closed and I took possession, moving in with my camping gear for a bed and my dog Molly for support. Moll and I had driven out from Calgary dodging winter storms across the prairies and the northern US in to Ontario. It was in the -35C range for most of the drive. I asked for the January closing because of my show schedule; clearing out my studio in Calgary...

Covid has given me the gift of time. Time to do a lot of things on an internal list I knew I carried around with me, but didn't have the time to recognize until this year. Time to create my daily yoga practice. Time to watch my garden grow. Time to work on blowing the dust off my business identity. Time to appreciate all the people in my life, if only virtually. Time to be kinder, more patient and hopefully more considerate. As a single, self-employed person living in the country, I found Covid incredibly isolating at first. I was...