You made pots for 25 years before making it your profession. What initially drew you to the practice and what motivated you to take it from hobby to career?

I started working with clay like most people, in a summer art camp and in High school art classes. When I started college I took a bunch of ceramic classes for the first two years, before switching to architecture and making ceramics secondary. During the X-Large clothing phase I was becoming less and less enchanted with the clothing business, so I bought a wheel and kiln and set up a small studio in my garage, that was around 1995 or 1996. WHen my first daughter, Beatrice, was born in Dec. 1998 I took paternity leave, and never really went back to XL. Having a child made me even less interested in clothing, and being home with the baby gave me more time in the studio making pots. As I spent more and more time making pots, and the work got better, I started sharing pieces with people as gifts, and was getting nice responses and encouragement from friends and family. I began to have a nagging voice in the back of my mind that said, "I should be a potter", which was of course where I had started in college a decade earlier. Then Sept. 11th happened, and my marriage unraveled shortly afterwards, and I think a combination of those two events made me think "it's now or never, my life is totally up in the air, so I should take the plunge and become a professional potter". In late 2002 I set up a real pottery studio, in a rented space in Atwater Village, rather than my garage, and got to work. By the spring of 2003 I was ready to show my work to people other than friends and family. I took a box of pots to a very nice store in Los Feliz, where I live, called SHOW and showed the work to Brad the owner. He was very enthusiastic and interested but said he couldn't buy anything but would be happy to do consignment. I suggested that rather than just putting w few pots in the shop, we do a very short term show where I really fill the space with pots. We did a show that opened Thursday night May 1st, 2003, and ran through the weekend. I invited everyone I knew and had a big coming out as a potter. The response was very good, and we sold a lot of work, which was very encouraging. The LA Times got wind of it and did a nice several-page-long profile in the magazine on July 4th weekend, and then I was officially in business. My phone rang a lot and I got tons of visitors at the studio.

Did you happen to grow up with Heath Ceramics in your home?

Nope. I grew up in Connecticut, with New England pottery and traditional English china. And Heller plastic plates as the every day dishes (four boys).

Your new role as studio director at Heath means you're interfacing with the public on a regular basis, planning events, inviting visiting artists and doing PR. How has that affected your work, if at all?

Well, I am more public for sure, and talk a lot more. The upside is there are a lot of very interesting people who walk through the door of Heath. I had other practical responsibilities and jobs at Atwater that were distracting, like answering the phone, invoicing, packing boxes, etc. (I worked alone), which are now handled by Heath staff, so I have traded some non-making tasks for some others. So I think my productivity is about the same as it was. Planning and hosting shows of people whose work I like and want to support is much more interesting than packing boxes, and it is an important aspect of how we conceived the Heath LA facility working, so I am very happy to be doing those sort of things.

Is there an artist outside of your immediate field that you particularly admire or who inspires you?

There are a lot of artists who inspire me, mostly outside of ceramics. In the dead-artist category there is Le Corbusier, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee, Mondrian, and that list could go on. Living artists are the sculpturist Charles Ray, the painter Roger Herman,Tadao Ando and his buildings, Brendan Monroe's paintings...I guess that list could go on for a while too.

Do you work to music, and if so, what are you listening to currently?

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music. Generally music that makes me want to move or think or feel something. Anything from old guy stuff like Prince or Elton John to The Smiths or newer stuff like Jack White's various projects or more indie stuff like Money Mark or the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. At Heath we are lucky in that we have a great DJ / music supervisor, Tricia Halloran, who puts together great music for us to work to.

Before committing to pottery you worked as an architect and as a clothing designer. Is pottery the last stop, or can you envision incorporating another form of expression?

I think pottery is the last stop, although it is a stop with a lot of room. I have been making nonfunctional sculptures made mostly of wheel-thrown clay and fired like functional pots. I also did a large room-size installation piece in collaboration with an architect friend, Nader Tehrani, that was at MOCA this past Spring and is now going to tour to other museums. I love the range of possibilities in pottery. Making a small bowl or a huge installation. Working at the wheel, with the circle and with fire, that is something I hope to do for the rest of my life.

Heath LA has been hosting lots of collaborative community oriented events; what do you have slated for the fall? What visiting artists are you planning to invite?

We have two incredible shows this Fall. Akio Nukaga, an amazing Japanese potter had his first US show with us in September. Then in November, the sculpture artist Alma Allen will have a show with us. He is also insanely talented and hard working. His show opens Nov. 7th.