“Forever a journey”
I have been creating and teaching art for the majority of my life. I learned to work on the potter’s wheel at a very early age. I was amazed at the process of taking soft clay, throwing it on this contraption, spinning it, and creating a pot. When I learned about the ceramic process, and that you use fire to finish the work, I was hooked.

My interests in ceramics and the studio arts consumed my high school and college life. I earned my Art Education degree from Buffalo State College and went on to earn my MFA in Ceramics from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Since that time I have taught in a variety of situations, but quickly realized my love of working with children. I am a high school art teacher in the beautiful town of Naples, in the Finger Lakes region of New York. I enjoy playing a role in the lives of the children and young adults of my community and I am inspired everyday by seeing the world through their eyes.

My interests in the visual arts are diverse. My undergraduate portfolio focused upon the sculptural vessel and the firing process of raku. I also intensely studied figure drawing and sculpture while obtaining by education degree. My graduate work consisted of large scale, classically inspired figurative sculpture. I enjoyed the challenge of creating really big sculpture out of clay and gained a tremendous amount of experience regarding ceramic techniques, processes and materials.

I have always made pots and the past several years have concentrated on sculptural mugs. These mugs have become studies in form and function and have also allowed me to explore imagery related to character and creature design as seen in my monster mug series. Imagination is the world I am often lost in, storytelling, escapism and popular fantasy have driven my creative choices. I love bringing form to life with gesture, texture and color.

I love working with clay as it is able to exist in so many different forms. From liquid to stone like solid, clay provides the most interesting and engaging processes of any art materials I have explored. Being a high school art teacher allows me to journey through art processes and materials , visiting with freedom, ideas fleeting or complex. The mug allows for a quick dip into process and idea formation, like a maquette, it represents something more, something larger and more complex but just for a moment I can hesitate and enjoy that tactile communication frozen in form as I enjoy my morning coffee.

Thank you to Main Street Arts for putting together this exhibition, it’s an honor to share my work. Find me on Facebook.

Stop by Main Street Arts to see Paul’s “Scurrying Mug” in our national juried exhibition of drinking vessels, “The Cup, The Mug” (juried by Peter Pincus, educator and ceramic artist from Rochester, N.Y.) The exhibition runs through January 4, 2018.