1998 & 2001 Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts Residency
New Castle, Main

I was invited twice by Jackie Brown, a professor of ceramic art from Frostburg State University, to join and work along side an accomplished group of 15 ceramic artists from various parts of America. I have collaborated with several artists and it has resulted in a new and exciting growth for all aspects of my work.

I focused on the intense use of my own hand made brushes.  Until this residency experience, my exploration of the brush as art was solely sculptural in nature with very little emphasis on my own use of the brush to paint with.

The resulting work focused on painting insect imagery of all types.  I painted and experimented with several various types of my own hand made brushes and used paper and black sumi ink to paint dozens of images utilizing various line qualities and spontaneous brush strokes. I automatically crossed over to painting insects on clay tea bowls that were thrown on the potters' wheel utilizing local red clay. 

The experience later resulted in a installation entitled, " The studio in the Gallery", where 500 ceramic tea bowls from various stages of construction were presented along side the potters wheel, tools and regional Idaho clay dug from local ceramic sites.  A single ringtail cat hair brush was used to paint the imagery on each individual tea bowl.