off-center: stole the expression, scottish folksinger jean redpath, ''wee bit offcenter" have alot of fun, off-plumb, not too seriously. not making great high art, not so precious in the sense that they can be used. on the other hand want it to be special. getting the two together whimsical: i want them to be joyful, to make you smile, and to be useful. I have beliefs political, social, spiritual, I don't feel the need to infuse them with my clay work". i do have some that I do on my own. influences: compells. what compels me is the sense of magic I have making things that have never been in the world before, and that up to now have just been in my head, whether. a notion in my head that is now in three dimensions. decoration many patterns in a row might be the same, but one may appear so much better, has a sparkle, a magic to it that I don't know where it comes from get bored: couple of stories about repition, metalwork artist MAX NIXON teacher at UO did a lot of repair work. told him that he should be doing other stuff. the reason he did that was that he kept limber until an idea came, he would be ready to tackle his own ideas. '" a creativity that comes from repeating the same thing over and over again" discovering a new way to do or to see it. I don't get bored, i get stressed because I have to sell things to make a living. share's a pottery kiln, can only do it once a month. i have deadlines, it's not boredom, it's stress. i am a good production potter. if i'm making familiar things i put my muscles in gear and my mind goes somewhere else. music: i listen to the radio, a ton of music - not all of it inspiring. listen to music I am previewing for my radio show. good and bad singer/songwriter music. it can quash the creativity too, my hands are busy and my mind isn't really listening to it anymore. sometimes it's all there when i sit down, sometimes it's fragments, and it's carpentry, it's not designed at that point. i have the major points but need to fill in. There is a certain amount of that in scuplting, you have to figure out how it may work. silly and serious: i feel really strongly about the importance of art and inspiration in our everyday lives. I am kind of silly and frivoulos and I joke a lot. I feel treasured when people take home my art and make it apart of their lives. it's rewarding to me came to eugene for grad school : never had been here. had a b a in art and math. worked as commercial artist for 4-5 years and political cartoons reached the point I had to commit to take a job as a graphic artist, or quit and start over. bought a small potter's wheel. eveniings and weekends, my clay hobby was taking over my life. I wanted to go to grad school and teach, I had done some teaching as an undergrad for sabbatical replacement. i may as well go some place distant and iinteresting sounding. la crosse 50k people, I went out one day, met six people from different parts of my life. i felt constrained, all these people who knew me and I felt that they may expect me to be the person that they knew, i wondered if that was really me or if I was the sum of their expectatins. wanted to reinvent myself. i got accepted. I FOUND OUT I WAS THE SAME PERSON THAT I WAS WHETHER I WAS THERE OR NOT. THAT WAS A RELIEF. To notice who you are without it being a reaction to other people's expectations. eugene art community: it feels like eugene has more underemployed artists than any other place that i've been. all the taxi drivers have phd's, that liked it here and didn't want to leave after their degrees. seems to be true of artists too, i know a lot of potters at sat market that have MFA's. i spent the first 3-4 years with my suitcase packed after grad, considered leaving. applied for jobs elsewhere for teaching. nebraska, and phone intv with guam. I would have left. but somewhere along the 4-5th year, I was doing pretty well, lotta friends, roots, started radio show. stopped resumes. decided to follow the direction that I had stumbled into . saturday is an incredible resource if you want to be a working selling artist in eugene. nothing like the snob appeal of a gallery, but it's every saturday. people actually come and look at things and react and sometimes buye them. it's the ultimate marketing tool, you can test market your stuff every sat down on the park blocks. I do out of town shows. I can't be a good potter without that street level contact that i get. I have stuff in galleries elsewhere. you get feedbackk from galleries, but not from customers. i have become a family potter for many. it's all high and noble to say that you are doing the art for yourself, but art is about communication. there is a limit to how long you can talk to yourself and still come up with meaningful relevent things. you need to communicate with other people and that's on the most basic level what selling your art in person does for you. some artists are looking for that one perfect item, every now and then I find someone that has, and it's horrifying to me, then they have to make that object for ever. i dont' want to have make the olive oil lamp with a little piece of fuzz in it. If they have time for other things, it's a trade off, i'm ok with that if you think you can do it. if i had to make things that i had to to sell. I wouldn have stayed a graphic artist and only do my own things on the weekends i do things of great variety, and that's why I dont' get bored. Over time those people will get bored. i'm not sure you can be happy creativilty doing the one sure thing over and over. there's got to be more than just making money being an artist i know i am tremendously artist that the art i want to do has an audience that is willing to pay for. It kind of grew. i am really fortunate animal content: farm kid, i used to do landscape plates, i don't do that anymore. i discoverd i am a close focus draftsman. i don't know how to focus for landscapes, i tend to fudge on the landscape and spend all my time on the foreground. I got to the beach and looks in the tidepools instead of l ooking at the waves. that big scope and I just don't work together very t well, that might be a personal failing, fresh man year told by first drawing instructor: was told as an artist to concentrate on what you do well and don't obsess on what you can't - keep developing the things you do really well i relate to them as beings. it's just magical when the drawings come out with the character they have, describing that form that they have, and that body. people bring me ideas, special orders, get ideas from other poeples interest and expeirnces, and a lot of times i stay with them and keep using them cuz the first one came out so well that i can't resist trying again. i cook alot, i love using handmade pottery, i know what forms work and why they work. doing portrait plates of dogs for people, dogs with people. it's tricky but it's doable. people: harder than painting animals because are recognition circuits are keyed for people, and if you don't do it right people know it. i do it now and again, i have to be more cautious and finicky. sculpture : i do small figures. i use to take my own pictures, slides, and I could do both, but I could spend a lot of time and effort on photography or concentrate on my clay work.. the function of scuplure is to be a prescence in the life of the person who owns it. radiate good cheer, a damn fine function. that's a function I'll get behind. i sell hundreds of pots a year, i'm lucky to sell a sculpture. i try to do a couple of new one's a year. i enjoy it. i don't want to feel pressed to make them commercial. i love what i'm doing and it sells too. functionality: sometimes i regert that i'm not doing more of the business it takes to get the sculpture out. I haven't gone looking for places to get them seen, i'm much better business man with my pottery than with my sculpture. bears: 40-50 in our bedroom. started out about stress. first holiday market, no fallback position. helps with crying babies. brought bears to clutch, they are functional and useful. gave customers more time to look. calming. we are fundamentally shy, they are interpreters, they lighten and loosen up the situation. helps to make eye contact between customers and us. helps to sell.they are great mediators USE WEBSITE QUOTES.