“A Buddhist walks into a pizza parlor and asks, can you make me one with everything?’”
One with Everything is the motto for my artwork. Taken from the dad joke above, it references a profound effort to work toward compassion for all living things, but in a way that doesn’t take oneself too seriously. Approaching life, art and Buddhism in a simple straightforward manner with lots of laughs along the way. But, one with everything means just that, everything. The happiness and the sorrow. It is crucial for me to confront and accept difficulties with the same warm heart I do the good times. Looking for the fun, humor and joy in these situations is what I portray in my artworks.
I create figurative ceramic sculptures called "Buddha Buddies" which are anthropomorphized, cartoon-like animal characters. Using earthenware clay, colored slips and simple forming methods is a way I keep things humble and uncomplicated. My approach to using clay parallels my ideas of being straightforward and not taking oneself too seriously.
Using my Buddha Buddy and animal characters I can engage many subjects. The anthropomorphizing of animal characters are stand-ins for us so that lessons can be learned without preconceived bias of identities. Things like death, doubt and regret are addressed as well as compassion, joy and friendship. These emotional subjects are juxtaposed with the cartoonish characters and street art elements also act as a way to avoid cultural appropriation. It is important to me that the Buddhism I express comes from my western perspective rather than stealing imagery from other cultures. This makes it more personal and causes me to continuously re-examine my intentions and motivations. This I feel is a goal for spiritual pursuit, to always be working toward the goal of a more thoughtful and compassionate life. For me, this happens through my art work.
The personalities I gave my toys where really just reflections of my own inner light.
Fire is transformative.
A friendly face on you journey to enlightenment!
Anitya is Sanskrit for impermanence.
My foundation in clay is pottery. This is Cone 10 Porcelain fired in the soda kiln.
An installation I did at Living Arts Tulsa.
An Installation I did for a Northwest Missouri State faculty show. It includes spray painted letters and stencils, wheel thrown pottery, sculptural shrines and relief prints.
I love making teabowls! They are a great way to shift gears and work on something different than the big sculptures. I make them in a style similar to the handbuilding technique of Raku. Learning about Chojiro, Raku-yaki and the tea ceremony during graduate school had a big effect on my work. These are fired in a variety of ways from cone 04 earthenware, cone 5 stoneware and cone 10 soda fired porcelain. All have slips and glazes with carved graffiti style tags.
This group of Buddha Buddies were made during my last few years (2007-2016) teaching as an Adjunct at Northwest Missouri State University. They are around 20 inches tall fired to cone 7 in reduction with slips and terra sigillata.
These Buddies were the stars of my solo show in Tulsa Oklahoma at Living Arts Tulsa in 2016! The Dhyani Buddhas are 5 personifications of the life and teachings of the Buddha. They are all about four feet tall made with stoneware fired to cone 5. They are finished with underglaze and terra sigillata. Each has a custom pedestal with extras to give hints about there role in the group.
They are in order left to right:
Akshobhya
Amitabha
Vairocana
Ratnasambhava
Amoghasiddhi
This is an installation that I did for the 2011 Faculty Show at Northwest Missouri State University. There were pagoda like ceramics sculptures, dishes and vase with dried flowers, incense, graffiti backdrop and relief print takeaways! This is the kind of stuff I want to do more of in the future.
My first exposure to clay was making pottery. I learned from Russ Schmaljohn at Northwest Missouri State. This group of pots was made in 2016. They are wheel thrown porcelain with flashing slip and ash glaze fired in the soda kiln. The last pic is the kiln in which all these pots were fired. It was built by Laura Kukkee, Russ Schmaljohn, Kim Pluskota and myself at Northwest.
I want to give young artist a space to create, learn and discover things about themselves. When teaching Art, Ceramics in particular, there is a certain level of skill that needs to develop before a student can develop his or her own conceptual approach. That being said, if the technical aspects of any medium of art are focused on too much you risk losing the student and the honest expression that comes with being naive about that medium. Recognizing this, when I teach ceramics it is very important that technique and conceptual ideas are cultivated in a balanced manner. To foster a culture of quality and investigation in which all students have a voice is my goal.
A portrait bust is the final project in my Beginning Ceramics class.
The Ridiculous Butter Dish is a project where students learn slab construction and have the chance to express themselves.
Free-form slab construction
This assignment challenges the students to construct a 16 inch tall coil pot, but also execute a design that integrates with the form of the pot.
Each advanced students has to put on a senior show that is a synthesis of their 4 years but that is also a cohesive expression.
Site specific sculpture requires students to interact with an environment.
The relief helps students begin to translate 2D ideas to 3D form.
Students build a wire armature and then cover it with something to tell a story.
Students must collect found objects and then assemble them into a composition. This requires students to look past the object’s former use and into it as a shape.
