Celadon

Color is one of my favorite things to think about; I cannot imagine a world without it. Color is what drew me to art. The opportunity to work with color seemed more exciting than anything else I could imagine doing. I studied Albers, Chevreul, Goethe, Itten, Color-Aid papers and Pantone's pantheon of colors. I have always used a lot of color in my work, in clays, slips, and glazes - often in layers as well as side by side.

There is more — there is always more color. Color is elusive. Our eyes can see more colors than we have names for. Some say we can discern between one and seven million colors by eye. It escapes quantifying, like our emotions and intuitions. It is this elusive aspect of color that intrigues me. To me, color is felt in the gut. We know intuitively when it feels right and when it is off.

Celadon is what drew me to ceramics. It is both subtle and deep, a color that defies easy description. It moves with you and seems to change slightly according to the light, the time of day, and where you stand. It calls forth the associations of my favorite things: the spiritual elegance of Song porcelain bowls, the transmutability of jade, and the fluidity of water.

When I was in elementary school in Hong Kong, we lived in an apartment above an antique store. In the early morning hours in winter, waiting for my ride to school, I would peer through the window into the dimness of the store. On a dark wood table I could see the porcelain bowl on a small wooden pedestal. The pale glaze on the bowl seemed to have a luminescence that radiated out into the darkness of the neighborhood. I would stand there looking at the lustrous surface, transfixed, and time would disappear. Maybe it is a genetic predisposition, hard-wired in my genes. This same pale glaze still inspires, and captivates me.