I have been this way for as long as I can remember. One of my earlier memories of extreme meticulousness was during second or third grade doing an arts and crafts project in school. We were doing a collage project on Native American culture where the class drew objects on construction paper and then cut them out. After I finished my first drawing, my teacher came over to show my partner and I how to use the “big boy scissors”. She did a cut moderately close to the lines of my drawing but left a good deal of blank space between my drawing and the edge of the paper. This made me rather uncomfortable and as soon as she wasn’t looking I made my own cut going directly along the line of my drawing.

Write something about movement here. Over the years I have been called a perfectionist by many. While I do not entirely disagree with this characterization, I prefer a different term – meticulous. In fact, this is how I would sum up my work if I was asked to describe it in a word. To me, meticulous means skipping no steps and I suppose it also means taking time to precisely craft those actual steps.

My methods of preparation, both physical and mental, centering, and pulling are refined to a point. I tolerate no time, energy, or clay being wasted during the six or seven days a week that I find myself in the studio. It would be remiss of me to not mention the necessity of discipline as well. Internalizing a controlled form of behavior in the studio is fundamental to success.

Call it a sprinkling of OCD or call it taking pride in my work. The point is that I am, and always have been, precise. Which frankly can get absolutely exhausting. I can never do anything casually, particularly when I’m in the studio. It’s all or nothing and if I’m not going to work to my standards then I may as well not even be there. That being said, this mindset has afforded me something extraordinarily unique: the ability to create ceramic forms that few others are capable of making. Here is a product of this mindset, a vase made of black stoneware with white slip and glass.