The Mediterranean sea is beautiful in September! I have returned from my travels and projects in the south of France and am excited to share some of my new work and inspirations with San Francisco. I met Lauren Kearns during our residency together at Valauris in 2016, where we became great friends. She invited me to San Raphael, where she brings ceramic artists from all over the world to work and teach. We had our two-person exhibition called “Elements” on the 21st of September. The opening reception went well, with many of the local people in attendance and I got to practice my French. I was also invited to show my works at Faune Galleria in Antibes right next to the Picasso museum! I am happy my Aquatics are living in the French Riviera now.
My two-week residency in the south of France culminated in a series of sculptures which meditate on merging the smooth, polished and manicured aspects of civilized architecture with the rough, overgrown and wild elements of unpopulated forests and beaches. Translating my daily experience of socializing with the Mediterranean water creatures like corals and medusas, or the beautiful pine trees with their intricate cones, then walking back into the meticulously clean and organized town of San Raphael, my sculptures take on similarly multi-layered aspects and reveal rough, spontaneous textures beneath smooth and shiny skins.
After the bisque firing
“I’ll Take You to See the Future”
UPWARD she looks through a rose colored lens,
“I will take you to the future”
Her bottom lip bends,
Optimism and clarity is what her gift lends,
Her origin unknown, so your wonder deepens;
‘How may I meet her?’
Well that depends,
The sick, sad, impoverished are the ones who she mends,
Granting insight to happiness is her means to an end
Her power is priceless, for it is time she defends.
Poem inspired by the multi-talented Bjorn Rojas, one of my workshop attendees.
“Aqua Lady”