Did I choose clay or did it choose me? When David was a kid visiting his grandparents in Oregon, he used to dig up clay, bring it home and make things out of it. In grade school, all he wanted to do was work with clay. When he went to study business at Washington State University, David took a ceramics class for fun. “I realized I was spending much more time in the ceramics lab than in business cl
asses.” So David changed his major to art and ended up at California State University Chico, where he was lucky enough to study ceramics under Jack Windsor, who started the Chico State ceramics program and was a master glaze scientist, and Michael Lucero, a nationally renowned New York-based ceramics artist, whose work has been featured in the Smithsonian. Of his work, David says “I like to make functional pieces…things that are beautiful but that people can use.” He chooses to work in high fire, which is more expensive and more difficult, but results in highly durable pieces that don’t chip as easily as low fired clay. In this way, David brings art into people’s day to day experience by creating useful pieces. “I love the idea of people having my work and using it…drinking their morning coffee out of one of my mugs, or making a salad in one my bowls and serving it to their family.”
David’s favorite part of his work is to experiment, trying new glazes and techniques. “I love opening the kiln and seeing how things turned out. I am always striving to do things a little bit better, and a little different.” David had been firing a gas kiln for many years and recently invested in an electric kiln, which affords more precision and control. He is currently trying new glazing techniques, including using the bright orange and yellow glazes that have only recently become available at high temperatures, and which characterize much of his current work. He is also in the process of installing solar panels on the roof of his studio in Chico, California so that he can sustainably generate the energy that fires his kiln.
