Without a doubt, growing up in the wilds of California and then Oregon played to and influenced my clay work. As children we lived in the out of doors. Domestically I tended to cats and dogs and rode our family horses. There was an enormous sense of freedom living this type of lifestyle and these sensations are all still incorporated in what I do and build today. But really it is the memories of green space - forests and fields with wild deer grazing and hawks flying overhead that conjure up the stories I want to tell through my clay heads specifically. That is how I like to think of myself - as a storyteller and a communicator of messages. My art, my claywork, my creative animal pieces always relay an emotion, a feeling.