When you are gone arose from a year of intensive studio practice in which I grappled with the certainty of loss. I could not shake an image of full sails at night. Persistent and insistent, they overtook my practice and posed questions to which the attendant works respond: How will I find you? How will you know me? How long do we have to wait? The sculptural vessels—beacons, planets, spell bowls—offer up maps, modes of navigation, in response.

The sailing ships are drawn loosely from Scottish fishing vessels called smacks that ran in the Western Isles, a place of my ancestry and daydreams. The ceramics are rooted in historic vessel with a through-line to North Carolina pots. These works continue to push against the rule-bound lineage in clay, eschewing perfectionism and productivity, embracing vulnerability and chance. I leaned into honesty in the material, exposing seams, adding back remnant pieces, and pushing melting points. I take deep pleasure in experimentation in the studio and fire materials that are intimate, specific, and unpredictable: ash from the wood stove, gemstones collected by my mother, broken glass from wine bottles.

how will i find you?
how will you know me?
how long do we have to wait?

near, by the birdsong
there, where the sea meets the sky above, the resonant chain

we tend the garden we store the memories we follow the signs
we sail by night
we drink

now, breathe
now, night
now, ash and stone