The desert “I grew up in Arizona, where I was surrounded by sand and dirt. I never really liked the color green growing up, because I had no reference point for it until I moved to Chicago. The greenest thing we had was cactuses and palo verde trees. Once I was able to find a clay body that reminded me of home, the speckled buff stoneware I use almost exclusively, I stuck with it — that’s why I tend to reveal the base of a lot of my sculptures as being made out of clay. I couldn’t relate to porcelain, mainly because I had no reference point for it besides dollar store stuff.”