O N E
I believe we are all connected, and my goal as an artist has always been to explore the layers of that connectedness.
Growing up in a family of musicians and sculptors, I spent my early life hiking, skiing and exploring the Italian Alps surrounding our village.
It began a connection to nature, the earth and my community that has continued beyond my childhood and informed my art.
After many years of travel, academic Art studies in international locales and experimenting with different artistic media, I developed a focussed passion for clay.
That passion is grounded in the four elements – earth, air, fire and water. These elements are key to my role as a community artist making ceramic works. They inspire me to continue exploring my connection to nature and to community, through individual commissioned works, but also through the creative process I undertake hand in hand with individuals and communities.
I work with many people, some who are extremely challenged physically, cognitively and/or emotionally. I guide and I witness each person’s visceral response to the moulding of clay followed by the meditative joy that comes from exercising their creativity. In short, Art is therapy. By providing a gentle place and a safe process, I am able to help them explore and communicate what connects them to me, to the earth, to others and more importantly to themselves. Perhaps I am no different. Although fluent in four languages, I am most comfortable communicating through clay. In manipulating earth-soil-clay, vulnerabilities are revealed, and I am able to reach a different and deeper level of who I really am, and to explore more freely the mysteries of my own life.
I have always been grateful for the opportunities to assist in transforming fragmented communities through the creation of mural stories that use broken, discarded porcelain tile, and tell of people and their communities. These works possess the power to reconnect people with their communities through a process that has proven to be therapeutic. And in upcycling the earth’s resources, they also perform a role, albeit small, in healing the earth.
On these many journeys I have taken with these communities, many of them marginal, the initial steps are usually taken with trepidation, but as time and engagement grows, so do trust and self-fulfillment. The process is, in a word, transformative. Each small creative step taken together results in a shared experience of infinite beauty, a dramatic and positive shift in perception, and an intimate connection to earth and each other. This journey, when undertaken together, moves towards inner harmony and outer mutuality.