In this recent body of work, Touch, I am most interested in exploring ideas of relationships, love and space between people. I also want to consider our connection to the sense of touch in an abstract way, sometimes playing on the tensions that lie within the anticipation of touch. The idea of touch can connect to visual stimulation: the look of an object, person, animal, might trigger an imagined sensation; what it might feel like to hold or to stroke that object while being unable to touch it. At the base of this work is a consideration of how as a society our relationship to the things and beings that surround us is becoming increasingly physically distanced.  Many people are becoming disconnected from their bodies, and the vital power of our senses, in particular the sense of Touch.  I want my work to celebrate our ability and desire to touch and feel.

Touch is often emotional. Touch is labor. Touch is sometimes abstract.

I am investigating these ideas by exploring abstracted forms reminiscent of body parts. In other works, mundane every day items of intimacy such as the cotton bud become metaphors for the body. I want to create objects that invite the touch and or evoke physical closeness and fragility.

When considering my relationship to the glass medium, specifically blown glass, I am strongly aware of my physical connection to my work. In a time when our society is dissociating from physical activity, when the culture of the body is becoming more cosmetic than practical, the relevance of the hand and the 'hand-made' is in question.  In the way we make and acquire, grow foods, communicate, court, etc, the skills that use to be vital are increasingly becoming obsolete. The hand of the maker (or hunter, gatherer etc) is so far removed (often has disappeared) that many people forget its existence. I also strive to celebrate my relationship to the medium, and therefore my relationship to a long heritage of makers, a whole history of skills, by infusing my work with reverence to the history of blown glass through a rigorous technical approach. This approach is essential to address the relevance of my practice in a time when consumption and environmental considerations drive me to carefully consider the content in my work.