Modern lightweight porcelain forms thrown on the wheel featuring ornately carved bottoms, tripedal sculpted feet, pulled handles and intricately hand painted pop culture designs. 

Hallmarks of my designs include: meticulously crafted dynamic compositions, precisely executed linework, emotionally evocative imagery, bold color choices, high contrast backgrounds and lots of intentionally exposed raw porcelain.

My hope is that even if the viewer has no interest in the source media, they would see my work and think “that is a beautiful object.”

At it’s core, my work is fully functional, but it rides the line between being a luxury collector’s item and an everyday mug.

My goal is to create something that looks equally at home in its environment whether it is in a display case or in your hand filled with coffee. 

Every piece that leaves my studio is expertly finished, lovingly obsessed over and truly one of a kind. 

I grew up in the mountains near Asheville NC (a Mecca for pottery on the east coast) but surprisingly didn’t figure out my passion for ceramics until I was basically an adult!

I’ve been painting & drawing since I was a little girl, and have considered it a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. 

I was exceedingly lucky to have supportive parents who saw my interest in art and did their best to support me.

Throughout middle school I attended an art class that was held once a week at a small mom & pop art supplies store in my town. It was a very small class size with mixed ages and consisted of a very simple curriculum: make whatever we wanted under the advice and supervision of the instructor. She would make suggestions, answer all of our questions, teach us how to use new materials, assist us with applying for shows and act as a mentor. At the time I didn’t realize how valuable this was, but in hindsight those classes were exceptionally valuable. 

On the more somber side of things, I had an extremely difficult time functioning socially in school. I was the kid who you could find hiding in the art classroom during lunch period. I suffered from crippling anxiety, ADHD and depression which all led to me dropping out my junior year of high school. 

I quickly obtained my GED and began taking courses at a local AB-Tech community college to pursue an Associates Degree in Fine Arts with a focus in painting. 

My plan after graduation was to illustrate children’s books and sell my original paintings. 

During my last semester I needed another studio credit and decided to take a ceramics course. I could never have predicted just how fast I would fall absolutely head over heels in love with pottery.

It was like someone flipped a switch in my brain - nothing before had ever brought me this level of contentment, peace, joy & fulfillment.

It seemed like overnight I was suddenly asking professors to let me skip their classes to get into the studio sooner, requesting extra information from my ceramics professor, arriving to the studio early and leaving late, bringing clay home to play with on the weekends and making triple the volume of work required for projects.

I was buzzing with excitement and had never felt more sure about anything in my life; I was going to be a full time potter and I’d do whatever it took to make that happen!

I graduated with my AA degree, but I stayed at college the following semester to audit another ceramics course as well as become a studio volunteer to work as a tech.

Being a volunteer gave me full-time access to the studio even on weekends & holiday breaks and you can bet I was in there 7 days a week! 

I spent a full year working there - firing kilns, cleaning, mixing glazes and hosting open studios, all while creating my own massive body of work. 

In 2019 I had to leave that studio and move East for my husband’s career. 

It took me a while to find my footing, and I was struggling with finding somewhere to fire my work. 

In 2020, I began working for Liz Kelly and Gretchen Quinn, 2 extremely successful potters based in Raleigh NC. I worked with each of them for a little over a year, attaching handles, making slab plates & trays, cleaning, glazing, etc.

Working for them gave me incredible insight into the realistic life of a full time maker, tons of invaluable advice as well as access to a kiln for firing my own work. 

Midway through my time working with Liz & Gretchen, I was hired by the city of Raleigh and the NC State University Craft Center to teach pottery classes. 

Near the end of 2021 I had 3 part time jobs: working for Liz & Gretchen, teaching, and creating my own work. 

It was around this time that I started to have some real success on social media. Previously, my work was not selling well, but I had made some huge design shifts and was currently having the most fun I’d experienced since first starting pottery. 

In Feb of 2022 I had my first fast sell-out; 15 pieces gone in under 5 minutes! 

After that sale I had an ever-growing waitlist of people who wanted to buy my work. From then on, I slowly phased out of all the part time work until May of 2022 when I officially went full time with my own business. 

I hope that my story can serve as inspiration and encouragement for artists who might be struggling to sell their own work.

Just keep pushing forward and make art that you are passionate about!

You don’t need a fancy degree, you just need to discover what kind of work sparks the most joy for you, find your ideal audience and be prepared to work harder than you’ve worked for anything else. 

I also hope that I can offer some of that encouragement & inspiration for any children/teens/young adults suffering from severe mental health issues like I did at that age (and still do). Of course they never go away, but life does get immensely better.

Just keep pushing forward; 16 year old me could never have dreamed of my life now. You will grow up and figure out what works for you.

You’ll be able to create your own life, surround yourself with people who care about you and find the freedom to do things that bring you happiness. Life will get better and it’s worth waiting for!

Some of my first major inspirations that still permeate my current work come from my childhood! The Lion King movies as well as book series like Warrior Cats & Guardians of Ga’Hoole were a huge deal for me.

I was obsessed with bringing the characters to life on paper in front of me and portraying as much of their personality in the drawings as I could. I bring this up because it’s so similar to how I approach my inspirations today - the satisfaction I feel when I can make the character on the clay exude the desired emotion is immense!

My goal is always to capture a moment of intense emotion and convey it to my audience, whether or not they are familiar with the source material. The only things that have changed since I was a child are the source materials & skill level.

I want the eyes to burn with anger, light up with mischief or scream with devastation.

I want the pose to feel like there’s weight & power behind it, like a hand is reaching out to grab anything it can in desperation or a knee has been slammed onto the ground in defiance. 

I want the characters to be heard loud & clear, even while frozen in that precise moment of emotional impact. 

I strive for my designs to be captivating enough that even if you have never engaged with this type of media, the image grabs your attention and evokes an emotional connection.   

One of my favorite complements is when people tell me that they watched a show, read a manga or played a game because they saw a design of mine and it sparked their interest enough to make them seek out the source. 

There’s so much pop culture media that is currently a big inspiration for me; to list just a small portion: Demon Slayer, Blue Lock, Dandadan, Arcane, Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, Studio Ghibli, My Hero Academia, Chainsaw Man, The Witcher 3, Haikyuu and Beastars.