Passion Currently, I am a working artist and a Ceramic’s Instructor at the Flint Institute of Art (FIA) in Flint, Michigan. For the last 13 years, the FIA has been a huge opportunity for me to develop and be effective as an instructor while developing more insight and skills as an artist. Below is a short narrative of how I came to this point in my career. I first fell in love with clay during high school at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art and have been pursuing my passion now for over 25 years including earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Siena Heights University in Adrian, MI, working and learning from some of the best ceramic artists from all over the country including those at Pewabic Pottery of Detroit. Every job, every person, every life encounter (challenging or not) has led me further and further along my “ceramics” path of triumphs, exciting accomplishments, experiments and failures and made me a better artist and teacher. Teaching inspires me. There are amazing students that I have connected with and fabulous and talented people that have inspired and improved my processes in many ways. This passion is centered on an absolute wonderful and addictive medium to explore. It is 2D & 3D all in the same breath. It can act as a canvas, a paint, a sculpture, a functional piece, a structure or even the ground we walk on. As society is changing, so is our environment as well as our clay materials. This change keeps my mind running, researching, thinking and solving, perfecting and flowing. Clay is my “calm”. There is such an immense sense of fulfillment involved with clay and glazes from start to finish. When a clay piece turns out and fulfills that aesthetic desire that we all yearn for…..you just know it. It makes you want to continue the process, explore and push the limits even more. So that is how I came to Konkelclay. After having 2 children, I could continue to explore that creative path but see it in such a different light; through the eyes of my children. I am inspired by my children and their excitement as well as my supportive and creative husband. I am inspired by nature, texture, detail, pattern, fabric, motivation, color, glitz and glamour, fire and most of all….. love and patience. In everything I do, I start with a thought or idea and then it evolves. It changes as the clay starts to take a mind of its own. So, I grow with it ….and sometimes not. Driven to create something beautiful and striking, natural and organic with raw materials, I strive for form and function with an artistic flair. It makes me happy to create. It makes me even happier for someone else to feel that excitement and sense of beauty and purpose about something that is created. This is my inspiration.
The Cracked Pot Studio Tour 