My journey on the slippery clay path began in the late 1980s when I took my first wheel throwing class. I immediately fell in love with the process of creating vessels on the wheel. A year later, I enrolled in the ceramics program at my local community college in Eugene, Oregon. There, I was taught not only the advanced facets of the art and craft of handmade pottery, but also the deeper implications of creating functional ware to be used by other people. The potter in charge of the ceramics program was Bruce Wild and Bruce had a profound influence on my attitude toward the significance of handmade pottery.

One and one-half years later, I joined a ceramic arts co-op in Eugene called Club Mud, an affiliate of the Maude Kerns Art Center. In this collaborative environment, I was able to immerse myself in the process of developing my skills as a production potter, working every day, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning tending a large gas-fired kiln. It was at this time that I began selling my work at the Eugene Saturday Market. It was either sell pottery, or be forced out of my own home by boxes of ware! I sold my work at Saturday Market and regional arts and crafts shows for seven years, during which time I was able to build a nice following of customers from around the country.

In August of 2000, my wife Deborah and I moved to Grand Junction, where I now work out of a home studio. Deborah and I are also developing a line of collaborative work. I design vases into which she incises designs and sometimes applies under-glaze colors.

In February of 2002, I initiated the formation of the Junction Clay Arts Guild, an association of artists working in the medium of clay. Since the modest beginnings of the Guild's first meeting in my living room, we have grown to about thirty members. The Guild has hosted a glaze workshop conducted by Ian Currie, a potter from Australia and renowned expert in ceramic glazes. In 2004, The Guild hosted a workshop featuring Randy Broadnax, an expert in fast-firing techniques, e.g., raku and ferric chloride fuming. The Guild has also put on several sales, a tour of potter's studios, and had a showing at Planet Earth at The Four Directions Gallery.