2025 was the year that I found my Italian groove with clay.

For so much of my life I’ve done my firing through guilds and groups and schools.

In 2018, thank you to a Chalmers Professional Development Grant from the Ontario Arts Council, I finally went through the work of setting up a ceramics studio at The Cedars (my family cottage in Canada).

What feels like 15 minutes later, I moved to Italy… okay it was a whole year later, but there wasn’t enough time to get into a groove before I left.

Finally this year, I hit it! My groove! I have settled on some clay bodies and have come to know them well. I have fired my wood kiln - Cantico - often enough to know her foibles and how to make her sing. And I have developed a collection of glazes with which I am becoming friends.

I am so proud of the results.

It’s also lovely to see them through someone else’s eyes. One of our Workaways - Nina van den Broek - took these photos, and she made them shine!!!

Regalia is a love song about and between the natural world and womanhood. This work - 12 vessels, 12 regalia, 12 photographs, and a video - captures the inspiration I have found in my new life among the hills, woods, and sea that make up the Maremma (a wild area of Tuscany) and the power of being woman and artist in this third act of life.

The Raucous Joy of the Raven’s Call is about the quickening feeling I get when an idea wings its way into my awareness. The raven calls; it is time to play! A flight of fancy begins. Wild and unconcerned with what ‘should be’, the work emerges and her call is captured, held for a moment in each piece I create, only to wing away again, on to new adventures.

As a body of work, The Raucous Joy of the Raven’s Call has been two years in the making. Evolving with each exhibition, The Raven’s Call has become stronger, speaking more deeply to my struggle to exist without reference to others.

In a beautiful twist of fate, during this journey, not only did I manage to fall in love with myself, but I also found a life partner who sings to my soul, who holds open the space for me to simply be me, and who offers shelter for my conspiracy of ravens and their constant cries.

Thus Perched Together closes the Raven’s cycle - and the journey it represents for me. I now turn to exploring what Nesting might look like!

Perched Together was on exhibition from November 09, 2019 till February 17, 2020 in the Display Area Gallery at the Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre in Oakville, Canada.

Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council for supporting this exhibition with two grants!

As an artist, my biggest challenge is the idea that my art must say something - most specifically something worth saying. In a world that still devalues women’s voices, that celebrates only the visual appeal of our self and our work, that encourages us to be small and self controlled, I am striving to strip myself of the voice of the ‘other’. 

In The Summoning, I cast off the colourful plumage of outward facing words that speak of my relationships with others; like patient, gracious, attentive, considerate, thoughtful, and loving. And using the poetry of Nikita Gill, I summon for myself the words that make my soul sing; fierce, bold, adventurous, unfettered, energetic.   These words speak to me of my own power to exist in this world without reference to others.  

The Summoning is the second in a series of solo exhibitions that centre around the Raven as intermediary between worlds, a spirit guide, a harbinger of change.  

By listening to the Raven’s call, I seek a deeper knowledge of myself and my art.  I move towards a richer understanding of the interplay between the felt and the spoken.  And I discover a wild and joyous way of being me. 

I loathe being told I am accepting, adorable, affectionate, agreeable, amazing, amiable, amusing, attentive, available or whatever else people may possibly say about me. These are all outward facing words. They are about taking care of others. They objectify women. Perhaps even worse are bossy, bitchy, bubbly, bolshy, breathless, and beautiful. As these words are feminine: uniquely used to put women in their place. 

A teacher once snidely remarked that I must have grown up in a liberal family; I hadn’t been properly taught my place. The remark was meant to cut me down to size. But I choose my own place. I take up my own space. 

In my journey as an artist, I seek to be fierce and unfettered, bold and adventurous, wild and passionate. These words speak to me of my own power - to exist in this world without reference to others. 

Driven by the specificity of time, place, and people, I explore the individual, community, and cultural meanings and uses of the space and what either grows or can be found there.

My home town, Hamilton Ontario, has been a rich source; a steel town, nestled in the beauty of the golden horseshoe, is in the midst of an shift from industry to art. 


In A Rusted Development Revisited, I draw on this tension, using rusted industrial gears to print on and dye fabric. I layer this fabric with found objects that speak to my own place in this space and my own growing sense of self as an artist.

I incorporate text from Father Tuckers Annual for Children, a paternalistic and misogynistic book from the 1940s, found in a local thrift store. Cutting it up was liberating, freeing myself from similar messages in more modern texts.

The ceramic vessels explore ideas of containment and liberation, and the relationship between inside and outside. 


We are mirrors, Hamilton and I; both finding our footing as hotbeds of creation.


Overall, A Rusted Development Revisited speaks to my fascination with the organic nature of rebirth and rejuvenation.

At a ceramics residency this winter, I made 60 ceramic bottles, that I've decided to name A Sunday Kind of Love.  Not sure of their purpose, I packed them all into my suitcase and flew home with them.  Days later, I unpacked them and installed them temporarily around my hometown, Campbellford. 

The installation was part of an international event called [[ Everyone's asking if I'm ok / No one's asking if I'm ok ]]  by the icing room.  These are some of the photos from that installation. 

In a ceramics school, perched on an edge of a valley, in the midst of the rolling olive orchards and vineyards of Tuscany, buffeted by the competing egos of our instructors, ensconced by the supportive protection of creative women, I pushed my craft hard. 

These vessels hold my hopes for a future filled with sprawling vistas, satiated appetites, and birdsong. 

Thank you to The Ontario Arts Council for providing me with a Chalmers Professional Development Grant to help make this happen.  

Using eucalyptus gathered while voyaging, I create imprints by tightly bundling the eucalyptus with various materials, drawing out an eco print.  I then marry these imprints with other materials - often found objects - to create a conversation.  This conversation speaks of the distances we travel, both physical and emotional, to connect with others.

Created in a frenzy of making, these seven pieces represent my first sustained effort to create a 'body of work'.  Pushing ideas of completion - from framing to naming - this work captures my emergence as an artist.

A View Into One Artist’s Process of Creating Work for Exhibition

May 4 - July 24, 2017, Burlington Public Library

I worked in the library weekly on Thursday mornings from May 4 to June 29, 2017.  It was a fertile and fraught time - full of ideas and processes, but also filled with anxiety (will this piece work? will the piece be good enough, will I get enough done?). As I am a community artist at heart, I shared my process and created work on the library's loom that formed part of my show

The pieces in this gallery were installations created specifically for the library.  

Fascinated by fibre, I use traditional women’s skills (like sewing, quilting, felting, dyeing, and weaving) in a contemporary context, incorporating found objects, as well as my own ceramics, glass, and woodworking, to explore the binaries of maker vs. artist; functional vs. fine art; women’s work vs. real work.

This gallery showcases my early textile work