My passion for clay began before I was ten years old. From the time that I was a teenager, I almost never doubted that I would become a potter.
In 1969, at the age of 24, I traveled to Mashiko, Japan from my home in California to study with the ceramic artist Hiroshi Seto. Soon after my arrival I developed my long lasting affinity for Mashiko’s clay oriented lifestyle.
In 1974 I established a pottery workshop in a small community north of San Francisco, California, where I specialized in the production of domestic stoneware. I was back in my home country, but I never stopped dreaming of returning to Japan to further test myself as a potter. In 1983, I sold the California studio and came back to Mashiko. In 1984 I founded the Mashiko workshop that I have maintained up to this time.
During the last century, Mashiko became increasingly known throughout the world as a mecca for ceramics, due to the efforts of the many artistic luminaries who chose to do their life's work...to live "a pottery life", so to speak, in this rural town. The impact of their accomplishments upon the world of ceramics, and the high standard they set through their contributions are things that I have always wished to emulate.
I’ve benefitted greatly from working in Mashiko for so many years. This place has become part of me... and likewise, I have become part of it!