Artist Statement

After decades working across theatre, design, sculpture, and fabrication, I found ceramics unexpectedly—and it felt like coming home. What began as a beginner’s class in 2022 quickly became a full-blown passion. Clay awakened something tactile and essential in me, something that had been quietly dormant since childhood days spent exploring the rocky beaches of Bainbridge Island with muddy hands and a curious mind.

Ceramics is a study in contrasts: precision and unpredictability, control and chaos. I’m drawn to these tensions. I throw clean, functional forms—vases, vessels, bowls—then disrupt them with layered glazes, asymmetries, and unexpected textures. The wheel demands exactness, but the kiln demands surrender. Clay warps. Glazes run. Pieces crack or explode. And somehow, that unpredictability feels alive, even necessary.

Though new to this medium, I don’t come to it as a novice to art. My past work—whether building a set, welding steel, or directing a scene—was always about form, presence, and truth. Clay simply presents a new lens. A conversation with the earth. A practice of presence.

I consider myself an emerging ceramic artist not because of age or artistic experience, but because I’m still in the thrilling process of discovering my voice in clay. I’m experimenting with glazes, pushing forms, testing how fire transforms surface and structure. I’m learning, failing, growing—with humility and joy.

This medium arrived in my life during a time of personal reflection. My father, a gifted draftsman, lost his ability to draw due to Parkinson’s tremors. I often wondered if clay—more forgiving of tremor, more responsive to touch—could have rekindled his creativity. I never got the chance to find out. But in many ways, I create now for both of us.

Ceramics has become more than a new craft. It’s a return to physicality, a rekindling of wonder, and a source of deep peace. It’s where intention meets accident, tradition meets rebellion, and the artist meets the unknown.

PC: Danielle Barnum