ACGA Where were you born and raised? Thinking back, would you say that art was part of your upbringing?
I was born and raised tromping through the hills of St. Helena, California and exploring the diverse terrain and warm waters of the Big Island of Hawaii. While being creative was a huge part of my childhood, harvesting and collecting while being outdoors were what interested me most. I loved to gather stones and acorns, sticks and moss, shells and flowers, and display them lovingly, each a cherished prize. These collections were my own personal cabinets of curiosity that I cherished and marveled at, pondering the natural beauty of the world. Now I find myself making these things out of clay, attempting to capture a fleeting moment or phase in time.
ACGA When did you start working with clay? Tell us a bit about your journey with your craft.
While having first experienced working with clay in high school, it was not until undergraduate school at Humboldt State University that I fell in love with ceramics. I had started as a Botany major with an Art minor, but quickly found myself spending all my time at the ceramics studio fascinated with the possibilities of the medium. I soon changed my major and began to really focus on developing several bodies of work, one being more production based and the other conceptual. I enjoy this back and forth balance between a meditative reproduction alongside intense detail orientated sculpting. I continued to explore both bodies of work throughout graduate school at San Jose State University, where I discovered how to incorporate screen printing onto my ceramics wares. I have continued to work as a full-time studio artist, now living in Mendocino County of Northern California, producing my screen printed utilitarian wares under my business name, Salt and Earth, while designing
and creating one of a kind porcelain paper clay sculptures
for private clients and gallery exhibitions.
ACGA Are there things about your techniques that are unique to your process?
My wheel thrown and handbuildt functional wares are all decorated with screen printed map design and then hand painted with gold luster. I print and apply all of the mason stain screenprints myself, and love the imperfections translated throughout this process. I use mid range Laguna Frost Porcelain for my paperclay floral and fauna sculptures, and fire to cone 7-8.
ACGA You have two distinct bodies of work. How do you balance the investigation for each and where to exhibit each?
While finding a seasonal exhibition rhythm can be different every year, I often work on both bodies of work simultaneously and love the back and forth each demands. I like to teach workshops in the Spring focused on my porcelain paperclay botanicals, then shift gears to stock up for the Clay and Glass Festival in Palo Alto for the summer. The Fall tends to be when I work mostly on groupings of works for my gallery exhibitions and commissions. Currently in the day to day I am focused working on commissions, which has been very fun and rewarding.
ACGA Clay and glass are physically demanding disciplines. How do you maintain your health?
Besides the help of my personal trainers, my son Bodin (5) and daughter Stella (3) to keep me in shape, I make sure to take time to be in nature everyday. If I am able to just escape for a short walk around our property or afford a long hike in the hills, being active in nature is still the driving force for inspiration in my work and helps me recalibrate when needed. I also have found throwing on the wheel standing up has helped my lower back flare ups and I have a silly looking but very functional yoga ball chair at my studio desk.
ACGA Is there one person or event that significantly inspired you?
My source of inspiration naturally is based on home and place. I find so much wonder in the world around me and the uniqueness that is in the here and now, ever grateful for the opportunity to exist among it all.
ACGA What is one thing that would surprise us to know about you?
I am in a band! We are called the Coyotes, and while only a few years together as a band, we eat together, all sleep under the same roof, and just can’t get enough of one another. I usually am on some sort of percussion instrument, Bodin plays guitar, Stella loves to rock a keyboard and rattle simultaneously, and my husband, Wesley Wright, leads us all on his ukulele.
