Having been a perpetual student in my younger days, I spent a lot of time taking art classes at the University of Alaska. My focus was on degrees that would pay the bills, so I never got a degree in art, just a lot of credits. Prior to discovering clay (I wasn’t the first) all of my sculpture experience was in stone and wood. It was Margrethe who got me started, and once I made my first figure in clay there was no turning back. That was around 15 years ago. Since then clay has become a part of my daily life, from the footprints in the hall when I forget to take my shoes off at the door, to the buckets of heads, feet, arms, and legs that just didn’t make it. I would call my sculptural work “the art of persistence”. Over the years the buckets have not filled as quickly, and that is how I measure my success these days. I love teaching at the WAC because I get to see the thrill of discovering clay all over again in the artists who come to my classes.