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WHERE I STARTED..
I learned how to draw, paint, and play the violin in high school.
It was how I processed dealing with the struggles of being a military brat, moving around constantly, and social anxiety.
Always, I was interested in clay but never had the opportunity until I chose Clay 1 as an elective first semester.
At the time, I never heard people
like me being taken seriously for
pursuing art.
So when I attended Eckerd college, Initially, I pursued something more practical like creative writing and journalism.
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I found myself torn between ceramics and biology.
My amazing mentors informed me of the interdisciplinary arts major as an option to pursue all of my interests.
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I explored ancient forms, constantly imagined the intentions of past civilizations behind
them.
2-D Media was a way for me to understand and embrace my inner world.
I was able to piece together themes of self, love, sexuality, and communicate these questions to others.
I took a class taught my my mentor Brian Ransom and alum Nick Shwartz. Thats when I learned how to build an Anagama brick my brick.
Seeing a small flame transform into a ~2500 degree fire was revolutionary. Especially witnessing the harmony it took to get to this point.
Being a part of a group 24/7 stoking wood into a 14ft kiln for a week was captivating.
Rivers of vaporized ash trickled down the
sides of our pieces and flames left
marks of eternity on every ware.
We offered whiskey, salt, or sake to the
kiln gods(clay figurines that rest on the
top of our kilns that blessed and
protected our work.)
Whether the kiln gods, religious gods, or the universe, we relinquish our control and our work to something higher than ourselves.
We all are connected to the trees, the elements, each other, and potters of the past during this time.
I continued building and fire Anagamas, making ash glazes, and worked with local or “wild” clay straight from the earth.
I also made and fired bricks for masonry and to build more kilns.
Working with ash, and wild clay,
taught me to embrace the imperfections
of my body and mind as they reflected
nature.
If I could love the cracks and impressions on this vessel-- that told stories of millennia of geological activity--then I could accept the ochre and sienna tones of my own skin.
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I take an ethnobotanical approach to my art so that I always connected to the natural world, the ancestors, and civilizations that came before me.
This way, my process leads me to becoming whole as I piece together so much that has been lost as an descendent of the African Diaspora in the western world.
My purpose is to lead others into doing the same, hopefully in their own way so that we can all be celebrated by the similarities and intricacies that makes us who we are.
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