The act of art making involves an innate spirituality that enables me to address the cycle of life and death. As an artist, my work is influenced by qualities observed in nature: the negative space created by naked branches in the winter, the path traced by insects in a hollow log, or fossils found in the ground. I try to recreate my experience of such things with clay. The hands-on quality of working with clay is important to me. Through the manipulation of materials I am allowed to convert emotion and memory into a tactile form. My hands serve as a conduit that transforms emotional and spiritual raw materials into concrete metaphors. Various formal elements are crucial to my vision. Light and shadow have metaphorical qualities and define space. The repetitions of curvilinear forms intend to create a lively visual field that evokes life energy. The bonelike objects reference fossils and the strata of the life cycle. In my artwork, traces of a history are evident, but the subtler details of a forgotten past entice discovery.