My clay vessel forms over the past 25 years have always been deeply rooted in ancient artifacts and their historical cultural backgrounds, such as prehistory Japanese Jomon wares, primitive African sculptures, Southwest American Indian art, and pre-Columbian ceremonial figurines.  This growing interest has evolved slowly from vessel making to architectural constructions. 

The Shard Plates series were derived from my fascination of the American Southwest with its Native American culture. Pottery shards can be easily found along hiking trails, providing fascinating details of artistry. These wonderful patterns are now part of the images of each shard on the plates. 

The plates are intentionally broken, designed, fired, and finally reassembled with glue -- somewhat like a pattern on a cloth quilt. To provide a contemporary quality to its surface, as well as an ancient artifact quality, I combined the bright colors with its fragmented surfaces to hopefully achieve this imagery.

On the technical side, all shards are glazed with a unique pattern and color combination, and then set aside for specific firing formats, i.e., electric kiln, raku, sawdust, low-temperature, and/or sawdust.