ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My desire to create is inspired by the annual renewal and decay of the earth and plants in our daily lives. I am captivated by the effect of light and shadow on the landscape and how it reveals 3-dimensional terrestrial forms in an ever-changing way.

My formal training of wheel throwing and hand building in the rich tradition of ceramics and my lifetime of working in the landscape as a Professional Gardener has given me a particular understanding of the malleable properties of the earth. I observe the effects that the forces of water, wind, temperature, and human-made obstacles leave as erosion and tracks that reflect the passing of time, exposing surfaces full of crevices, cusps, long slow declines and rises, abundant with changes of color, textures, and mysteries.

I imagine the spaces beneath the crust of the land where water flows and collects as it carves new paths and environments.

Monument Rocks, Oakley, Kansas Photo: M.R.Braley

These landscape pieces offer a glimpse in time as a memory of, or the feeling one has in a place, revealing the tension, stretch, volume, weight, stress and quiet of that moment. I am beginning to appreciate and respond to the parts of my work that reflect the human form and how that has echoes in the landscapes that I experience daily.

A diverse range of materials comes to mind for future work: wood armatures with stretched linen, woven natural materials, with an addition of fresh moss or water as a live element. As well as harnessing the willingness to expand my ideas and follow where the exploration takes me as my questions change over time. I imagine my work evolving into site specific spaces, or even as ephemeral installations. At this time in my life the material of clay feels like a gateway and just the beginning to what is unforeseen and full of potential.

Clay is the medium that best supports my physical building process, allowing for fluid addition and subtraction, offering quick solutions when my ideas change. The vessels I create are reflections of my experiences in nature, initially sparked by the austerity of the Flint Hills of Kansas.

Exploring the relationship of interior and exterior spaces as a place to begin, I ask questions and make decisions relating to form, line, positive and negative space in response to what adjoins and surrounds that space, much as a painter decides what color makes sense next to another.