I’ve always been interested in the things we live with every day.

Not necessarily the things we save for special occasions, but the ones we reach for without thinking—a favorite mug in the morning, a bowl that somehow always seems to end up on the kitchen counter, a vase that has held flowers, branches, and sometimes nothing at all.

These are ordinary objects, but over time they can become anything but ordinary. That is one of the reasons I make functional pottery. I like the idea that a handmade piece doesn’t have to sit on a shelf to be appreciated. It can be used. It can become familiar. Maybe a mug develops a small mark from years of use, or a bowl becomes the one you always reach for because it simply feels right in your hands.

I pay a lot of attention to that feeling when I make a piece—the balance, the weight, the rim, the way the shape fits in your hand. I want something to be beautiful, but I also want it to work.

Living in Ojai influences my work in quieter ways, too. I’m surrounded by open spaces, old trees, weathered fences, dry grasses, stones and the changing colors of the landscape. I’m drawn to surfaces and forms that feel a little softened by time rather than perfectly new. I like a little evidence of the hand. A glaze that pools or breaks in unexpected places. A shape that feels simple but not quite predictable.

Sometimes I bring pieces of the landscape into my work—leaves, grasses, stones, branches or other natural materials gathered around the Ojai Valley. They might become part of the surface, an element of the composition, or simply the inspiration for a form.

I think handmade pottery has a special ability to settle into our lives.

It doesn’t have to announce itself as art. It can simply become part of breakfast, dinner with friends, flowers from the garden, or a quiet cup of coffee before the day begins.

And somewhere along the way, the object becomes connected to those moments.

That’s the part I love most.