I grew up on a farm in California’s Central Valley. I spent my summer days running through the vineyards and orchards that surrounded us. I was happiest sitting down at the creek with my feet and hands in mud, gazing out at the foothills and beyond that, the white capped Sierras. Fast forward many years and I am lucky to call Sonoma County home. I look out my clay studio window and out to the vineyard views, Fitch Mountain, Mt St Helena, and all of it connects me to my childhood days. So I think, without even realizing, I infuse those memories into the clay itself. I seek out glazes and clay bodies that reflect bright blue sky and rushing water, mountain peaks, rows of vines, valley dirt and dust, and those freshly oiled country roads.

And yes, my relationship with clay, started, too, way back then. My mom drove my brothers and me all the way to Duncan ceramics in Fresno for classes. We hand built cats and lizards and funky little ash trays, glazing everything in those bright 1970s whites and browns and yellows and oranges that I swear, I love more than anything to this day. I continued seeking out ceramics in college. My friend Lily was dating a guy who made glazes for the ceramics department at Cal Poly. We snuck in late at night and spun stuff on the wheel and played with his experimental glazes. But when I left college and moved to San Francisco, I got a job in tech, eventually focusing on UX design in the software space. Fast-foward twenty years….I was ready for a change but I didn’t know how or what. I wanted to be part of my community in Healdsburg. I wanted to stop all zoom calls. Forever. So when the pandemic hit, it was clay I wanted to get back to. I quit my job at Oracle and started taking classes. And more classes. Four years later here I am! Thanks to Clayfolk in Occidental for just being awesome, Hiroshi Fuchigami at Santa Rosa JC, for answering my endless questions and teaching me the way.