Photo Credit: Siena DeBolt

Photo Credit: Siena DeBolt

I explore the joy of inheriting the legacy of a 150-year-old heritage family farm and historical Scandinavian folk traditions. My forms echo the rich practice of working the land: soft-formed, curving clay walls reminiscent of rolling hills, carved ridges like plow-scraped fields meet gentle, undulating wave-like rims. Working with my body is a sacred experience. Using a kickwheel is an intuitive, meditative encounter. My feet propel the wheel, capturing my legs' slow, rhythmic movement juxtaposed by the sharp vertical textures in the form. As I labor with my hands in the clay, I contemplate my ancestors toiling with their hands in the earth, wood, and stone. Researching Scandinavian decorative folk traditions and historical objects from the Viking age, I reconnect with my heritage apart from the stories told by a tight-knit family steeped in traditions and dogma. My work unites the farmer and the academic at a common table, evoking a timeless truth: the glorious can be found in the mundane, and the divine in the common.