Jim’s journey to making art from mud was anything but a clean line.

As a boy in Connecticut Jim was always creating things, things made from glass, or wood, or paper or clay. He was that kid in art class who loved being in art class. However, at 17 he put away childish toys, moved to Arizona and secured an MBA in international marketing from Thunderbird School of Management.

Fortunately, he also chose one pottery course, as an elective.

Freshly minted MBA in hand, Jim secured a job in silicon valley. But after two years he decided that International Marketing would just have to carry on without him and he upped stakes, found his way back to Arizona, and landed a job at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden.

Being around all those amazing desert plants combined with one well-chosen elective worked its magic; Jim began making things again. Things made from clay. First, he created pottery for the Garden’s gift shop, then for art festivals, and eventually for his own studio and gallery in Scottsdale’s historic arts district. He also moved from pottery exclusively, to creating large scale ceramic pieces. Pieces of art inspired by the plants of the Sonoran Desert. Pieces of art that adorn the walls and halls of amazing homes all over the valley and other parts of the world.

25 years later Jim still makes art out of mud from his studio and gallery in Scottsdale’s Historic Arts District. Stop in sometime, maybe he can make something for you.

I’ve always loved making things with my hands, which is an absolute prerequisite for a ceramic artist. And you mustn’t mind getting a bit dirty – you are, after all, playing in the mud – if you are doing it right that is.

My large-scale pieces begin as individual clay slabs about two-feet square. I join these together to create a larger slab the size of the finished piece – anywhere from 4 to 10 feet square. On the larger slab I overlay a paper template I’ve created beforehand and use this to trace and press the outlines of my design into the wet clay using a pin tool. I then cut the larger slab into individual parts of the design by following the marks in the wet clay. When the design has been cut, I smooth and shape each piece by hand or use various tools to create texture. Sometimes I add other pieces of clay on top of the slab, like the individual leaves and flowers on my Hesperaloe design shown here.
When I’m happy with what I’ve done, I put the individual sections on plasterboard, wrap them in plastic and let them dry for about a week or ten days occasionally loosening the plastic to release more moisture. When they are what is called “leather hard” I remove the plastic and let them air-dry before eventually putting them in the sun.

When all the pieces are dry, I bisque kiln fire them making the clay receptive to glaze, then I glaze and fire the pieces one or more times depending on the affect I’ll trying to achieve

Like I said, I love working with my hands.