My work reflects the topography of my childhood home in Southwestern Wisconsin. Inspired by the landscape and agricultural architecture my porcelain work reimagines an idyllic place and time that is both contemporary and iconic. I utilize detailed renderings, subtle textures and a marriage of representational and abstract forms to create a visual vocabulary of place that is both intimate and expansive.
After moving away from Wisconsin, I found myself reflecting and memorializing my time in this place. My admiration for my home and rural life has triggered my current investigations of this landscape and architecture in my ceramic work.
Landscape, architecture, aerial imagery and topography have been recurring references in my work for many years. I study mapped plains of land admiring their effortless connections; housed within each landscape was an arrangement of simple shapes that bonded to form dynamic compositions.
I grew up in a small rural community on the Mississippi River surrounded by forest- covered hills and steep bluffs. It was an interesting dichotomy growing up in an area where the land is so vast, but the population is so small. There is all this space to explore, create adventures and solve curiosities, but it is juxtaposed with a village of 300 people who know everything about you, yet nothing at all.
There is a beautiful sense of freedom growing up on a river. As a young child bravery and confidence build quickly when walking into water that is not transparent. This early intrigue grows and leads to jumping off train trestles into a dark unknown and speeding down a channel in the moonlight as your body bounces balanced on top of an inner tube pulled behind a boat. One really gains a sense of immunity to danger, but also an appreciation for luck.
My elementary, middle school and high school were housed in the same building erected in the middle of a cornfield. My bus driver was my best friend’s grandpa; who was also a farmer. Future Farmers of America and football were top priorities, definitely not art or the pursuit of art. In fact, I had to take a class on cow identification in high school. Yes, cow identification!
In this ruralscape, fields of hay, corn, cows and chickens were familiar scenery. My family, like so many in this small community, were farmers. They worked this land before the sun rose until after the sunset earning very minimal wages. My family among many families no longer farm. The increased competition from larger farms and industrial agriculture coupled with the cost of maintaining farm infrastructure and land became unsustainable.
After moving away from Wisconsin, I found myself reflecting and memorializing my time in this place. My admiration for my home and rural life has triggered my current investigations of this landscape and architecture in my ceramic work.
Landscape, architecture, aerial imagery and topography have been recurring references in my work for many years. I study mapped plains of land admiring their effortless connections; housed within each landscape was an arrangement of simple shapes that bonded to form dynamic compositions.
I grew up in a small rural community on the Mississippi River surrounded by forest- covered hills and steep bluffs. It was an interesting dichotomy growing up in an area where the land is so vast, but the population is so small. There is all this space to explore, create adventures and solve curiosities, but it is juxtaposed with a village of 300 people who know everything about you, yet nothing at all.
There is a beautiful sense of freedom growing up on a river. As a young child bravery and confidence build quickly when walking into water that is not transparent. This early intrigue grows and leads to jumping off train trestles into a dark unknown and speeding down a channel in the moonlight as your body bounces balanced on top of an inner tube pulled behind a boat. One really gains a sense of immunity to danger, but also an appreciation for luck.
My elementary, middle school and high school were housed in the same building erected in the middle of a cornfield. My bus driver was my best friend’s grandpa; who was also a farmer. Future Farmers of America and football were top priorities, definitely not art or the pursuit of art. In fact, I had to take a class on cow identification in high school. Yes, cow identification!
In this ruralscape, fields of hay, corn, cows and chickens were familiar scenery. My family, like so many in this small community, were farmers. They worked this land before the sun rose until after the sunset earning very minimal wages. My family among many families no longer farm. The increased competition from larger farms and industrial agriculture coupled with the cost of maintaining farm infrastructure and land became unsustainable.
