Making art is where my teaching begins. I draw, paint, work in clay, print cyanotypes, and take photographs, and I’ve spent more than 20 years as a graphic and web designer. This gallery brings that range together across two-dimensional, three-dimensional, craft, and digital work. Some pieces are my own personal work. Others are teacher samples I made while planning lessons, because the best way to teach a process is to work through it myself first. Every piece reminds me of what I want my students to feel in the studio: curious, willing to experiment, and proud of making something that is theirs.
Cyanotype is a camera-free photographic process that uses sunlight to make prints in deep Prussian blue. Paper is coated with a light-sensitive iron solution. Then objects like plants, or a printed negative, are laid on top, and the paper is exposed to the sun. When it’s rinsed in water, the exposed areas turn blue and the covered areas stay white, which leaves a ghostly silhouette of whatever blocked the light.
Scientist Sir John Herschel invented the process in 1842, and botanist Anna Atkins used it to record plant specimens, which made her one of the first women photographers.
My ceramics work includes both high-fire pieces and samples made for the classroom. My high-fire stoneware is hand-built and wheel-thrown, glazed, and fired to cone 10. It’s where I explore form, surface, and pattern. Alongside it are air-dry clay pieces I made as teacher samples for student projects. Making them lets me work through each step before I teach it, and it shows students what’s possible without a kiln. At Dale Junior High, I also run our ceramics program, prepping clay projects, firing the kiln, and managing glazes, so I know clay from both sides of the table: as an artist and as a teacher.