The hot springs on my road trip and residency at Misson Street Arts in New Mexico are the genesis for my newest works. I mainlined into the ancient geology and beginnings of life on earth via hot springs. 

I love the oozing hot water seeping from the depth. First hearing them talk when I floated on my back at Pagosa Springs in Colorado. The burbling communication that I couldn’t understand but felt the energy and deities in the world below. At Jemez Springs the water oozes out of little mouths in the ground. Their lips are dyed with minerals and form layers.

I’ve been calling the series onsen creatures. Onsen is the word for hot springs in Japanese. And they use this symbol ♨ for them. In the indigenous Shinto religion, kami (spirits or deities) inhabit all aspects of the world. Hot springs awaken my awareness of the kami and made me want to manifest what I feel into the visual world.

I drew the kami in ink on paper at the Jemez Spring residency.  I imagined the spirits seeing the light and encountering humans in the water as they became conscious. Exploring us with their bubbles and trying to communicate. They are energy rising out of the depths with various levels of evolution. Sometimes gods and sometimes just unformed beings. These new creatures are made out of ancient geology. They have the wisdom of old at times and others are simplistic creatures. They aren’t put together “correctly” and can’t talk but spew minerals. Below the earth they are asleep and when they emerge the minerals burble out of their mouth and eyes. 

Upon returning to my ceramic studio in Seattle I furthered my studies. The ceramic process uses clay mined from the earth and minerals to make the glazes. This deepens the art’s connection to our planet and the history of ceramic art. When their mouths are dripping the mineral glazes I’m also thinking about glazing pots and that being a whisper from the earth’s kami.