When I decided to explore clay as a medium about ten years ago, I was overjoyed to discover that all of the other skills I had learned over the years through acting, writing, painting, designing, drawing, and welding were going to be fully utilized in my clay work. There is such an easy fusion of the mind, body and spirit for me when I work with the clay. Clay is an ancient medium for communicating artistic and spiritual expression. Essentially the work represents my desire to investigate the human yearning for the higher self through art, language and spirituality.

Each part of the hands-on process in dealing with clay is sensuously thrilling to me… the crinkling sound when opening the bag of clay and stripping the plastic away, smelling the earthy clay mix, determining the moisture content by rubbing it between my fingers, cutting into the clay with wire to separate it into sections that I then roll through a hand cranked machine into a slab. Each slab comes out in a slightly different shape and that randomness helps to define the final shape of the clay tablets and breast plates. I use cylinder rolls and stamps that I’ve made to impress and mark the clay. Textures are found everywhere, from laces and doilies my friends give me to the bottom of tennis shoes and boots.

The “Artifact/Artifice Series” was begun in 2004 and I plan to complete it by 2010. Written language development/recognition and the way in which “truth” can be manipulated through written language is the focus of this series. The clay tablets appear to be ancient and contain a repetitive code of lines and dots. The symbols and imagery I use are common to global cultural histories throughout time. They are presented museum-like in uniform shadow boxes. There are to be ten sets of ten tablets that will eventually incorporate the ancient forms of the English alphabet.

Native American rock painting and ancient Greek Cycladic art inspired the “Spirit Guide” and “Sexy Goddess” series. The powerful prehistoric images of women in eastern Europe and an interest in athletics that led to getting a stage fighting certificate while studying acting in London ages ago is how I came to begin the “Breast Plate” series in 2006. I am thrilled to be showing this new work with other New Gallery artists at Viridian and look forward to offering “Amazon Warrior Breast Plates - A Battlefield Formation” in a 2008 Solo show at Viridian.