Your work clearly has strong ties to geometric abstraction, Minimalism, and Color Field painting, but what sets it apart is the tone, which is often described as “playful.” Was the informality a conscious decision?
It was, right from the beginning. I took a course in Asian art history as an undergraduate at Santa Barbara around the same time that I started making pots. This course taught me about Wabi-sabi, an attitude toward making things in the simplest, most basic way in order to let nature be a part of the creation. That appealed to my personality, because I’m not a careful, fastidious type of craftsman. I also thought that these Wabi-sabi forms were beautiful. Were you mocking the self-importance of those movements — Minimalism, Color Field painting, etc.? My work was often read as disrespect, but actually, I was totally enamored by Color Field painting. In school, we took a stand that we didn’t approve of painting — and Color Field painting was what was going on — but I thought it was beautiful. In order to have the conversation, though, it was more productive to say that you hated it and hated painting — you hated any pretty colors, any de Kooning–esque brushstrokes. Where does your furnit
