In July of 2019 I had the amazing opportunity to spend a few hours with a small group of writers in Samuel Clemens’ (Mark Twain) library at his house in Hartford CT.

        I was really excited about this special opportunity and I brought a handmade journal with me in which to write.

        The room was lit as it would have been when Mr Clemens lived there and I was positioned adjacent to his favorite chair where he sat in the evenings after dinner making up stories for his daughters about the items on the mantle of the fireplace. His daughters would rearrange the items each day so the story would have to change. That piece of history set the tone for me to journal about my own story and those in my family that came before me, courageous, sturdy, people who risked much for the betterment of their lives and eventually my own.

        I wrote about spending time in the places of my ancestors during the first part of my trip using poetry and prose and drawings of clay work I was inspired to make when I returned home to Tennessee. I felt the creativity of the space fill me and my pencil didn’t stop recording my thoughts and ideas until the very last second of time we had been given. 

        I spent the next year and a half working on making three dimensional pieces out of the two dimensional drawings in my journal. All 15 pieces were hand made out of beautiful red stoneware clay and adorned with white porcelain slip. They were then bisque fired and additional colored slips were applied along with a metallic glaze highlight before the final firing. I chose the materials to reference Mark Twain’s beautiful red brick home and the decoration to reference the white linen suite he is best known for. The metallic glaze was chosen to suggest that creativity is the spark and shine that is present in us all.