People ask me: “Where do you get your ideas? You must be on drugs.” Well, I am not on drugs; but clay is my addiction. Inspiration comes from cultures all over the world, and in particular from architecture and nature, but mostly from working with the clay itself. I don’t plan a lot of my work. It grows out of me working with the clay.
I have worked with clay almost all my life. My mother was a potter too. I grew up in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and in my early twenties emmigrated to the United States, where I studied with Don Reitz in Madison, Wisconsin. There was an enormous amount of energy and freedom in the clayworld at that time, the late sixties and early seventies. You could do anything, and I did.
I’ve worked in potteries in the Netherlands, US, Canada, Botswana and Afghanistan. Now I manage the Almonte Potters Guild and live nearby in Clayton, Ontario.
