You describe your work as “an exercise in indulgence” that confronts “a culture that relentlessly positions labor over life.” Yet your process is incredibly labor- intensive—everything wheel-thrown, even down to small switches. How do you reconcile this apparent contradiction between your labor-intensive process and your celebration of pleasure over productivity?

This is an apparent paradox in my work that I have spent a lot of time thinking about, and not one that I have necessarily resolved, but I can offer some musings! I think a lot about the tension between what’s frivolous and what’s essential or productive, and how ultimately what falls within or outside of these categories is culturally informed. I started my ceramic career as a potter making tableware and I think this draw towards making utilitarian objects is a through line that connects what I am doing now to when I first started working in ceramics. Now the scale has changed, but I am still making, or at least drawing on the blue-prints of, utilitarian objects, mostly furniture. However, the objects I produce also often push up against their prescribed utility – maybe the lamp doesn’t cast the most light, maybe the table doesn’t have that much usable flat surface. The realm of sculptural furniture has been a playground to flirt with both the ornamental and the utilitarian.

There’s also the history, and rejection, of ornament in the late 19th century that speaks to this same tension. While there’s this notion that mechanized processes killed ornament, there was a strong prejudice (called “cosmophobia”), stemming from a movement towards austerity, brewing prior to the industrial revolution. Ornamental styles are often very technical, labour intensive and rooted in longstanding craft traditions. (Read James Trillings “Ornament: A Modern Perspective” for more on this, it is so interesting) If we boil the major purpose of ornament down to a form of self- expression or to offer visual pleasure, then this rejection was ultimately a cultural declaration that certain labour is misplaced or unproductive. My work is my way of grappling with and thinking through what I have been taught is “productive”, so I just try to pump out as much ornamental, utilitarian frivolity as I can.

Your monumental lighting sculpture for NADA features thousands of precisely placed glaze droplets and hand-cut perforations. What unexpected technical challenge did you encounter while developing this piece, and how did overcoming it inform your approach to ceramic design?

This lamp actually came out almost without a hitch, but that wasn’t without so many failures in pieces before it. The lamp breaks down into parts, some just stack on top of each other, but others actually screw together with pipe-fittings that I have epoxied to the interior of the structure. This was definitely a trial-by-fire the first time I attempted it. I think working through how to make things in parts has been the biggest revelation in my ceramic process recently. It’s way easier on my body to work on smaller components, but it also means that I can make big work even if I don’t have a big kiln!

You’ve mentioned that Queer Club spaces influence your thinking about the value of pleasure and the relationship between public and private contexts. Could you elaborate on how these spaces have shaped specific elements of your ceramic furniture pieces—both visually and conceptually?

Conceptually, the Queer Club space has become emblematic of the same tension I was speaking about in response to your first question. They are these spaces that are about hedonism and indulgence but at the same time are, and have a very important history as, spaces to access community and catharsis. They’re spaces that take pleasure very seriously. They’re frivolous and they’re essential, their indulgence might be in part what makes them essential.

There’s also the body-forward nature of experiences at the club, where you’re in your body and out of your head. Sometimes this is called “flow state”, but my favourite description of this is McKenzie Wark’s “sideways time”, a term she coined in her book “Raving”. Sideways time is this moment of complete presentness where time can’t help but expand laterally, kind of an infinite moment. I think I experience sideways time in the studio often, especially when I’m working at the wheel. Bringing this back to the idea of the body, my work has taken on this really organic, almost bodily visual language, which is a reflection of these body-oriented experiences.

The exploration of private versus public spaces started to emerge because I was thinking about pleasure and these Queer, public spaces, but then producing these mostly domestic objects, or objects for private space. I recently made a whole bar with a set of stools, thinking about furniture items more likely to be found in a setting outside of the home. I’m also making objects that bring a bit of the spectacle and display of the public sphere into the domestic, private setting.