It’s about the process…

Slip-casting is a multi-step process, which begins with raw materials — 50lb bags from all over the world that I mix together with water and a deflocculent (to keep particles suspended). This is how I make my own liquid clay, porcelain in its earliest form: smooth and heavy with possibility.

I make plaster molds from a form which I either throw on the wheel or carve out of plaster. I pour my slip into the plaster molds, one by one, watching it fill the negative space that will again become a bowl, a cup, a vessel.

Then I wait.

The plaster begins to draw moisture from the slip, coaxing the form to life as clay particles accumulate along the sides. Slowly, a wall begins to build, invisible at first, then thickening, the piece taking shape, particle by particle.

There’s a moment when I know it’s time, a sense I’ve developed over years of practice. A rhythm of pacing, of listening to what the porcelain wants.

I pour the excess slip back out. What remains is a hollow skin, soft and smooth. It will dry, be trimmed, the edge smoothed with a sponge. What was once liquid becomes a quiet shape, waiting for next steps, the firings.

The magic is in this rhythm of repetition: rinse, pour, wait. Trim, clean, repeat.

Every piece I make passes through this rhythm. It begins as liquid, becomes form, edges cleaned and smoothed, then undergoes its trials by fire: bisque, glaze, and sometimes an image application (a third firing).

But it’s in these first moments of focused, repetitive motion where the heart of the work takes shape. And where my heart rests.