Our Craftsmanship

One of the things that makes our collaboration an easy one is that Joy and I both come from traditions of fine craftsmanship. Having creativity is fun; it's about seeing the possibility in all things and imagining how one thing can be transformed into quite another. For us, that has always been easy.

Craftsmanship, though, is about follow through: taking the idea and expressing and executing it with…well, excellence. That takes time, expertise, and commitment. Fortunately, that comes easily to both of us as well. It’s something we enjoy and respect about one another. Neither of us is willing to cut corners just to get a piece finished. Fine craftsmanship is self-evident when you experience a piece of art work in person. On the web, however, it’s not as easy. How can you tell? Well, one way is to have confidence in the artists. So we thought it would be helpful if you understood our professional backgrounds.

Painting has been a constant in my studio since college, but fine craft ceramics, very literally a more hands-on experience, was my medium of choice for 25 years.

Being a fine art ceramicist taught me a lot about craftsmanship. The tradition of ceramics puts value on the shape of a piece, how well the lid fits, how well the glaze fits (yes, that’s a thing!). Expertise is measured not only by the concept, but also literally by the thickness of the vessel wall. I became good at rising to those challenges.

And yes, the theme of simplicity and balance, which you see in the mixed media work now, was important to me even then. I have always loved the natural beauty of organic elements. And I had begun incorporating sandblasted glass in my ceramics, something that has grown to be a big part of my mixed media.

As a ceramicist, I wanted to make bigger pieces that didn’t need to be fired. That ultimately led me to mixed media and eventually to constructing the lightweight panels that I use now. I feel lucky to have found a way to continue to explore textures and three dimensional forms, something I loved creating as a ceramicist, and to also express emotions with color, something I found very satisfying as a painter. Joy will tell you that I am constantly experimenting with different materials and tools. If a utensil is missing from the kitchen, she doesn’t have to go far to find it, though it may not be in a condition to cook with anymore!

While I was in my ceramics studio or my painting studio, Joy was a printmaker, with a drawing studio upstairs, where she hand tinted her etchings with watercolors, or downstairs in her print shop.

Delicate and highly detailed, her style has always been to draw with dots. It’s something that gives her a lot of satisfaction. We laugh that now, with our mixed media artwork, choosing and composing with the tiny black pebbles is just like the work she did on her drawings, only the dots are bigger! Needless to say, she throws herself into creating the most exacting of the small cairns with pleasure. Plus, she has a great eye for choosing just the right pieces to tell a story and evoke a feeling. Being a natural storyteller is what has made her drawings so magical. Her ability to create an inviting place for the viewer is evident in our current mixed media pieces as well.

We are curious creatures. Despite our successes and awards for our previous artwork, we were each excited by the idea and challenge of this entirely new body of work. We have taken our collective creativity and craftsmanship, developed over a lifetime, to create these one-of-a-kind pieces. We've found a deep peace working with these natural materials. Our hope is, of course, that you can feel the good energy that we put into each piece… and add that to your own good energy, your own curiosity, and your own love of nature. That’s what has brought us together.

Thank you for taking the time to get to know us,
-David