I’ve always been fascinated by hands - particularly those of people that work with and create with their hands. It will forever remain the first thing I notice about someone. Our hands tell the story of our lives. 

From my earliest memories, my mother used to tell me she knew that I would work with my hands in some form. I was raised by people that also worked with their hands and the earth. It has felt like a natural evolution for me to continue that tradition which has led me to my own connection to the earth - grounded in my relationship with clay as a material to express myself. 

My story with clay began at the age of fourteen, just after a long battle with an illness that should have taken my life. After my recovery, I found my way to a ceramic course that, in retrospect, acted as a grounding, sensorial meditation I unconsciously gravitated towards. It was a reawakening of my spirit which had remained broken even after my body had miraculously healed.  It was the connection to this life force - and my tactile dialogue with it - that helped me to feel whole again, shaping what I couldn’t articulate with words alone.

After leaving Sarah Lawrence College and moving to New York City, life took hold. I lost touch with my creativity and found myself distracted by many things - some wonderful and some less so. Still I silently held this yearning to return to my hands and their interplay with clay. Nothing else seemed to fit. But as time passed, I lost confidence that it was still within me - or that I had anything to say at all. 

It was a chance meeting with painter Alex Katz in 2011 that eventually inspired me to find my way back to working with my hands. It didn’t happen immediately, but after at least a hundred hours of sitting for and with Alex in his studio and watching him create with such passionate curiosity and excitement in his 80’s (and now well into his 90’s), the light that had been dimmed for so many years slowly began to ignite again. That silent voice inside me found the confidence to reemerge. 

In 2020, after moving to Paris, France, I finally had the courage to embrace that vital part of myself - and it has changed my life forever. I will never take it for granted again. Thank you, Alex - I am forever indebted to you for our time together and for the inspiration you've been in my life. What a gift you have given me.

Working with clay has unearthed everything that is inside of me. I am constantly discovering new ways to appreciate earth as the life force it is. It represents everything that is vital, alive, moving. It is all we have - this earth. It is what connects us and makes us one. To return to it is deeply important. It becomes a language of its own, turning feeling into form that holds the memory of the past. 

Clay is a medium that carries immense historical weight - dating back at least 20,000 years across every culture that has existed on this beautiful planet. Every time I sit down to work, I feel I am a part of that history, honoring the past as I build my objects in the present. It has always felt like a moving meditation - an interplay between the inner and outer worlds, experienced simultaneously, using both hands in equal measure. Clay is sacred. It is pure magic.

I hope that you live with my objects with as much joy as I took in creating them.

Inspiration —

There is a beautiful Japanese word that encapsulates my work with clay as a collaboration between artist and nature: そのまま (sonomama) - just like that; just as you are; unchanged; as before; in a natural state; don’t move an inch. 

This manière d'être echoes through my work: a reverence for what is natural, for what simply is. In embracing the imperfect, one creates moments of stillness, presence, and connection—where the human hand meets the eternal rhythm of the earth. This process is an interplay - a dialogue between myself and the clay, in which we both have much to say.

I am endlessly inspired by the human form and the quiet poetry of nature’s organic shapes - fluid, irregular, or symmetrical lines that reveal the lives both lived and still unfolding. In a world increasingly dominated by mass production, I find solace and meaning in handmade objects - each one quite literally bearing the fingerprints of the hands that shaped it. 

The touch of the hand is essential - integral to uncovering beauty in its purest form through the soul of process. This is where strength and beauty lie: unpolished, raw. It is here that a piece comes alive. For me, imperfection holds more truth - and more power - than perfection ever could. 

Photograph by Ben Beagent