Crimson Laurel Gallery

Originally from Louisville, Kentucky I moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains to attend Penland School of Craft’s two year Core Fellowship Program. As a Core Fellow at Penland I am exploring artistic interests and career possibilities in a supportive artistic community.

My ceramics involve print processes and visual narratives that are simultaneously personal and universal. I’m currently creating new forms, investigating multiple surface techniques, and exploring imagery that’s influenced by the glitz and glam of carnivals, pop culture, and commercial design.

The surfaces that I am drawn to are surfaces that incorporate print processes such as digital and serigraph (a.k.a. screen printing). That explains my interest in screen printing slips onto my clay objects and later addressing them with decals whether they are designed on my own or commercially made. I use colors that are bright and bold reminding me of childish attributes; innocent and immature. This combination of print techniques, imagery and color establishes a visual playground for my audience. Many steps are taken to achieve desired results:

1. Forms, images, patterns, and colors are thought out prior to any making so digital work can be created on the computer.

2.) Once the object is created silk screens are prepped to print slips onto newsprint paper, and then images transferred onto the clay form.

3.) Stains, washes, and glazes are applied and planned out according to where decals will be placed.

4.) After the glaze firing I apply decals that I have designed. These decals are printed from a lazer jet printer with a toner containing iron oxide. The decals get fired on at a lower temperature.

5.) Commercial made and ordered decals are now applied and fired again at an even lower temperature.

6.) Finally liquid lusters might be brushed on causing for one last firing that is lower than the step before.