From a young age
you would find me covered in mud and dirt. A curly blonde girl who loved pink and frilly dresses running barefoot outside and completely smeared with dirt. As I got older, I helped with changing the soaker hose in the garden. After mom went it inside, I would step into the mud, sinking up to my knees. Oh the feeling of wet dirt on my hands and feet, it brought me so much joy!
I wish I could say that I found ceramics earlier in life, but alas my interest in math and sciences led me into the medical field, a more “acceptable” profession than artist. Those times I’d really let myself dream, I’d look into taking a ceramics class… time and time again. Yet, I let life take over and choose for me.
I’d find other ways to create.
At first it was creating the body I desired… by learning nutrition and applying the years of sports knowledge to sculpt my body into one that was and is unrealistic. A creation from the space of feeling unworthy, desperate to change the beautiful genetics and lineage passed down to me. One that I did achieve and could not maintain without rigidity to my diet and workout routine.
Then it was gathering knowledge to create a career that would fulfill me… yet no matter how much I search and learned, I wasn’t satisfied. I created healing in my body from years of chronic pain and fatigue. I created movement and Pilates classes that deeply touched and shifted other beings bodies. I created two physical therapy practices that specialized in treating the spine, pelvis and chronic pain. I grew a rehabilitation department in a hospital creating speciality programs to serve the community. Yet it wasn’t it.
The birth of my first child changed EVERYTHING.
My initiation into motherhood was not for the faint of heart. In my experience, the depth of surrender and stripping of all beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of control revealed ALL the ways I was lying to myself that everything was ok… that I was doing my soul’s work… that I was satisfied with my life.
On the outside it looked like I had it all - the career, the healing hands, the respect of people in my community, the amazing partner in husband and father, and a home in a mountain valley surrounded completely by mountain views.
On the inside I felt incredibly trapped and just wanted to run away - run away from it all and create a life where no one knew me so I could be exactly who I wanted to be outside of the expectations.
“Expectations”” created a self imposed prison where I believed that others thoughts, ideas, and wants for me were more important than my own. Yet in motherhood I quickly realized this was impossible.
I slowly started to listen to the voice inside, about what she really needed from me as a mother. Life slowly started to become much easier.
When it was time to return to work, I tried so hard for life to go back to the way it was before. Within a month I gave up lying to myself that this is what I wanted to be doing. How could I raise her to find her dreams if I didn’t know what mine were? How could I raise my daughter to follow her dreams if I wouldn’t? I started making plans to leave a career I worked so hard to build.
First pots I threw turned into adorable plant start pots.
The dismantling
wasn’t just in my professional life… it reached out and touched EVERYTHING. My husband and I sold our mountain home and moved across the country to my home state of Michigan, a place I vowed previously to never return. I became a stay-at-home mom in a community where that was the expectation. The main difference being I was about 10 years older than the other moms I met at the playgrounds. AND there was a ceramics studio nearby with beginner classes!!! I signed up immediately, starting right after my daughter’s first birthday. I am deeply grateful to my husband who saw I was dying on the inside being home all the time and needed some joy and creation in my life.
Vase with lavender from our gardenThrowing on the Wheel
was like a homecoming to my soul. It came easily and naturally, like I had done this for lifetimes before. The feeling of slip and mud all over my skin and clothes transported me into true ecstasy. I had come home.
I struggled with severe postpartum anxiety after the birth of my daughter. My husband joked that the ceramics studio was better than therapy for me, and he wasn’t wrong! He reminded me of this every time he lovingly pushed me out the door to go to the studio.
I made it so hard to go to the studio at first… I kept telling myself “I am not an artist. This is so frivolous. Why am I doing this? This will never turn into anything.” Yet, every time, I would return home completely rejuvenated and feeling fully alive.
In time, I found that pottery and other art mediums became the grounding force I needed to let creativity flow through me. The absolute joy in the act of creating was exactly what I was seeking. I learned to let go of the outcome (for the kiln goddess will do as she pleases!), perfectionism, and the belief of “wanting to be done with it already”.
opened my heart and soul to a greater dimension - where I learned to trust myself, the Divine, and the many guides that have surrounded me most of my life.
That experience taught me something I couldn't access through therapy or willpower alone: how to work with emptiness instead of running from it. When I stopped forcing and let myself sink into the not-knowing, something opened. Creation started flowing through me in ways I couldn't plan or predict.
I began to see my ceramic work differently. Not as product or hobby, but as co-creation with something larger. Being witnessed in that space changed everything - I started trusting what wanted to come through rather than controlling what I made.
Other styles entered my practice. I added paint, mixed mediums, let pieces evolve beyond functional pottery. Over and over I practiced surrender - asking what wanted to be created in this moment rather than executing a predetermined plan.
Entering the Feminine Mysteries
MY WORK EVOLVED
into pieces that hold intention. Some invite ritual or ceremony. Some anchor archetypal energy in physical form. Some just need to exist as beauty.
These aren't "just" ceramics. They're created with attention, care, and whatever quality of presence I can bring that day. Whether you're drawn to a piece for your home, or because something in you recognized something in it - I hope you feel what went into its making.
The joy of creation. The willingness to not know. The particular kind of magic that happens when you let the kiln goddess do as she pleases.