Years ago when I made cups on the wheel, I’d slice off the upper ring of my pot to even the rim. I’d toss the slices on boards and glaze them like the pots and leave them in piles or suspend them in air. A studiomate called them my shrapnel. Now, without pots, I make piles of shapes, coils, beads and shards, bisque them individually, and join them with glaze. Using the glaze as glue, I trap the shards into pieces that sit unfinished from abandoned projects. I find peace in this stacking, this rebuilding, this healing. And when I fire the kiln, there is great potential for upset or excitement, depending on the success of my estimations and what the heat does to the work. I force myself to detach from the outcome, mirroring the detachment necessary to navigate our world. The resulting sculptures point to the realities you can only think about for a fraction of your day: the crush of bodies, bottle caps filling the stomach of an albatross, garbage islands, artificial islands, walls topped with wire or glass to slice your hands when you try to cross, and all-out collapse. I want to report on myself and the world: on my complicity (which I try to disrupt – and it doesn’t work) with “the dirty muck of life,” the forces and the interconnectedness that keep us all entangled, all stooped in line.