The Person

I still stop to poke under rocks.

Always have. As a kid I spent every possible moment in nature, turning over stones along shorelines, watching how living things move through their environments, paying attention to the small and the overlooked. That relationship with the natural world never left me. It just eventually found its way into clay.

I came to ceramics seriously after a back injury that stopped me in my tracks and reminded me, with some force, that life is precious and often shorter than we plan for. I realized I needed to do what mattered to me today, not someday, not when things settled down. So I built a studio and started learning.

I haven't stopped since.

I maintain an active practice of learning through workshops, reading and training with some of the world's finest ceramic artists, among them Dave Settles, Adrian Golban, Alessandro Gallo, Hayne Bayless, Adrian Arleo, Christina Cordova, and most recently Brendan Hesmondhalgh in the UK.

My studio is in Calgary and spent many years on Gabriola Island. Living alongside nature fills my heart with ideas and keeps the work honest.

When I'm not in the studio you'll find me in the garden, in the kitchen, out in the bush, or somewhere being outwitted by my Labrador.

My work is held in private collections across Canada.

The Artist

My ceramic sculptural practice is rooted in a lifelong relationship with the natural world. From early childhood onward, time spent in nature has been a source of calm, attentiveness, and wonder , an experience that continues to shape how I work with clay. My sculptures emerge from this sustained observation of living systems, erosion, growth, and the quiet presence of animals as witnesses within their environments.

I work primarily with animal and figurative forms, often allowing them to appear fragmented, partial, or emerging from rough, porous surfaces. These forms reference archaeological objects, totems, and found remnants suggesting artifacts shaped by time rather than pristine representations. Surface plays a central role in this language: visible tool marks, irregular textures, and layered finishes function as a kind of record, holding memory, gesture, and process within the clay itself.

Colour is used deliberately and intuitively, often in bold or unexpected ways. Oxides, stains, underglazes, and washes interact with the raw surface, settling into recesses and amplifying texture. At times I incorporate found materials, gold leaf, or encaustic wax — not as embellishment, but as a means of heightening contrast and drawing attention to moments of tension between the natural and the constructed, the ancient and the contemporary.

Each piece is slowly dried and high-fired, reaching temperatures of approximately 1200°C. The physical demands of this process, cracking, warping, absorption, and transformation, are embraced rather than controlled. I am interested in allowing the material to assert itself, so that each sculpture develops its own presence and character.

At the core of my practice is to support biodiversity, vulnerability, and interdependence. By inviting viewers into a tactile and sensory encounter with the work, I hope to foster a quiet sense of reverence for the natural world and a renewed awareness of our responsibility within it.

Collectors and viewers often describe the sculptures as possessing a distinct personality or spirit. I see this response as evidence that surface, form, and material can carry emotional resonance. My aim is not to deliver a fixed message, but to create objects that hold space for reflection, wonder, and a deeper connection to the living systems that sustain us.

5% of every purchase supports the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre.

Creative Momentum Lab

There is another side to my life that doesn't show up in the studio.

Before ceramics became my full-time practice, I spent a long career in psychology, working with people on burnout, resilience, self-doubt and anxiety. I thought that background would make me immune to the particular struggles of the creative life.

It didn't.

Despite everything I knew professionally, I faced all of it. The distraction. The comparison. The quiet voice that said the work wasn't good enough. The paralysis of too many ideas and too few finished pieces.

What eventually helped me wasn't inspiration or discipline. It was applying the same evidence-based tools I'd worked with throughout my career in psychology, but this time, specifically to the challenges of being a working artist.

It worked. And I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

I've seen the same struggles play out across the broader creative community too. During my time as a partnership director at JazzYYC, a board member of the Alberta Potters’ Association, and working alongside musicians and creatives of all kinds, I watched talented people held back by the same invisible obstacles and saw what happened when they got the right kind of support.

That's why I built Creative Momentum Lab.

It's a place where artists, musicians and authors get practical, evidence-based help with the things that quietly kill creative momentum. Things like self-doubt, distraction, perfectionism, comparison, burnout, and the financial challenges that makes all of it harder. Short, affordable courses and honest conversations about the real challenges of the creative life.

Everything I've built there draws on decades of work in psychology, lived experience as a working artist, and a deep respect for what the creative life actually asks of people.

→ Explore Creative Momentum Lab