This work was created while on sabbatical and begun during a retreat to New Zealand. I returned to NZ to pursue ideas I had begun while living there in 2009. The fishing traps used in the South Pacific originally inspired the work with hints of the flora and fauna still lingering in the vases. I also had new ideas about hats, halos, crowns and hairdos. My thinking was about the things we cloak ourselves in or hide behind whether they are decorative, functional or ceremonial. I was reflecting on the ways in which we retreat quietly, elegantly or with great pomp and pageantry.
In retreat I began by enclosing the vases in patterned latticework while also playing with the idea of clay as weaving. I pushed the material to the brink of what was possible. In some cases through the firing the work sunk or tipped. At first disconcerting, after living with the work for a while I embraced these changes as part of what we do. Though we may set out with our best foot forward we perhaps come home or arrive a bit disheveled. It seems a fitting metaphor for how life sometimes goes and although the work may not be perfect it has a presence that suggests its history. Flowers still work beautifully in these pieces suggesting that even in our imperfection we may still experience wonder.