My commitment to ceramics started during my undergraduate degree at Salve Regina University.  I discovered my love for three dimensional work and began my exploration from there.  I worked mostly in porcelain and stoneware throughout my time at Salve but I also experimented with raku clay as well as plaster, mold making, re creating found objects and even blown glass.  I not only have great skill in three dimensional work, but I also a lot of experience with drawing and a good sense of two dimensional representation.  Recently, I have been in a graduate degree for art education at Rhode Island College.  I have been enjoying all my education classes and everything that comes with the preparation for being an art teacher for youth.  At RIC, I have been able to experience a metals class, which adds to my three dimensional portfolio, and I was also able to broaden my two dimensional experience by taking a class focused on design.  I look forward to my future as I travel along my own path to becoming an art educator. 

Inspiration: My first inspiration is Vincent Van Gogh and more specifically his famous painting Starry Night.  This has always been my favorite painting and always will be.  The colors, the textures and the meaning behind it is just so inspirational to me.  Another artist I've admired is Kristen Kieffer, a ceramic artist that does a lot of work in slip trailing.  She first inspired me to experiment with colored slips and various slip trailing techniques when I saw her di a live demonstration at NCECA in Houston Texas in 2013.  Peter Max, an illustrator from the 60s, has also been a huge inspiration to me throughout my creation of my ceramic work.  His psychedelic patterns and trippy designs have lead me to where I am today.  More recently I was inspired by Nicholas Sevigny, a ceramic artist who takes a natural material, like clay and manipulates it to look mechanical by giving it machine like qualities.  His work inspired me throughout my metals class, where I pushed natural forms and made a whole new meaning.

A special thanks to my ceramics mentor, Jay Lacouture, for inspiring me and guiding me to success.