The most important pots I make are those that tell a story about my relationships with food rituals and my life in the Oregon Coast Range. I see my primal nature as that of a farmer - hunter - gather. I carefully tend a small year around garden at home and grow saw timber trees on my Alsea farm. My Digger Mountain studio and cabin is located 27 miles up river from the Alsea Bay and brings me in close contact with the Pacific Ocean.

One defining experience from this environment is raking crabs and clams on daybreak minus tides in the summer - or in the fall with a lantern at night. I wade the bay with a special garden rake and a gunnysack strapped over the shoulder for the catch. Looking through the water I search for the faint suggestion of a buried crab under the rill marked patterns in the sand with a mosaic of shells and seaweed scattered on the bay floor.

The coast trip usually includes a visit to tide pools below the massive basalt rock formations of the Cape Perpetua headlands. On a worn path to the waters edge I cross an Indian shell midden and dodge waves from the incoming tide to harvest a bucket of mussels, collect seaweed, and carry home a rock or two.
This interaction with the natural world has become integrated in my pots and is a spiritual base for my aesthetic reference in clay. The pots that come from this naturalistic experience are the closest to my personal center and give back strength to heal the soul.