Artist Statement

        When I work I think a lot.  Mostly it’s not about that which is in front of me.  That action is generally a spontaneous response.  I think about who is forming whom at this moment.  Lately, due in part to the passing of my dear friends and heroes, I have been thinking about time.  It is the greatest gift of all, yet we take it for granted.  This gift of time, what shall I do with it?  How much time is there?  Will I waste it by worrying about the RULES, yesterday’s idea, or about laborious, extraneous techniques before I need them?  I choose not to.

Over the years, time has allowed me to manipulate my forms and surfaces with some degree of innate intelligence and personal satisfaction.  Time, an essential ingredient in firing, hardens and colors the clay, but also gives me time to think and look inward.

        Time has enabled me to bring to my work a personal uniqueness, a clarification of purpose.  These works serve as a bridge which allows me to move freely from one reality to another.  In the interface I am free of convention, opinion, and burdensome history.  My work becomes a personal iconography enabling me to visualize and organize my information.  My marks are there in the clay, my signature.

                                                Don Reitz