Many of these vases and sculptures speak to my focus on texture. In thinking about it, I am reminded of the bowerbird, an Australian native bird renowned for its nest building skills and courtship behavior. The male of the species goes to great lengths to create and decorate a nest usually with shiny, brightly colored found objects, such as shells, bones, pieces of fabric, in the hopes of attracting a female. As a finder and collector of objects, materials, kitchen tools, or any item that can be used for imprinting pattern into the clay, I can relate to the bowerbirds obsession with choosing the exactly “right” item to complete the creation. I think of their use as offering a narrative of origin, process and culmination in the finished piece