The Perfect Combination

I have been passionate about pottery since I started working in a ceramic studio some years after high school. It was there that I learned and absorbed all there was to know about the process of making and firing clay.

I was taught the philosophy that being a potter and or a ceramic artist, starts with skill. Where you take that "skill" with what creativity you have will be your own journey.


Gardening for me though comes from a deeper place. I feel that my love for plants and creating gardens is truly in my blood.

My great-grandfather was a champion dahlia grower. He tended to his tubers, and pinched buds off his specimen plants for years as my mother grew up watching him.
I believe that green thumb talent passed on to her.

When I was a child I think back to all the colorful snapdragon's and bachelor button's bursting out of the borders and the snow peas dangling from the trellises in the vegetable bed.
I loved being outside working and digging with my mom.
It was there in her gardens at a young age that I feel my little thumb began to blush green.


So for the years growing up as a child I always seemed to have an appreciation for the beauty of plants, and the way they made me feel.
It wasn't till I moved into my own apartment, during some time when I was working at the pottery studio that I started to learn about plants and their requirements.

I had this huge south facing picture window, that I began filling with houseplants. I bought books and started to absorb all that i could to help my new leafy friends thrive.

My plant path continues to this day with all sorts of botanical adventures, some mind blowing and others great failures.

As I know it is the exact same way one feels as being a ceramic artist. There is so much that one needs to learn and process, and then to take that information and make something uniquely beautiful, even if that beauty is all for you is a humbling and amazing feeling.


So, it is in this perfect combination that the two loves of mine have finally met.


If you were to go back to a my post in March of this year under "Forcing Age", you will read how I came to make a good amount of small terra-cotta pots, some of which I am attempting to "force age" upon. Those pots are still in the marshy woods, and soon will be checked on.

The remainder of the pots I recently planted up with, some amazing succulents, specimen lavenders, and scented geraniums.
Under the plants I mulched them small crushed stone with some special pebbles, and placed a metal plant identification tag in each pot.
I placed them out back of the pottery, facing due west.

I set them on some rustic benches and they seemed to glow with life.
Both the plants and the pots were transformed.

I am really pleased how these creations turned out, and even more so, that people have been taking these little guys home as well.

I'm already planning on making even more planters of different sizes, textures and glazes this coming winter.
I can't wait to see what comes of this plant inspired body of work!