agios ioannis, crete
june 2024

I remember the first time I thought of clay as signifying place. I was in Ancient Corinth doing research in 2003 and my professor pointed out to me that the yellow earth I could see in the escarpment we passed each day as we walked back to our house was the same clay the roof tiles on the Archaic temple we were researching were made of - and the same clay the roof tiles on the modern homes in the village were made of - and that almost always when I saw yellow clay in ancient Greek art and architecture it signified earth from Ancient Corinth. This presence that seemed to transcend - or maybe connect - time blew me away.

Twenty-one years later, I had the opportunity to return to Greece to spend two weeks in an abandoned village in Crete while at the Mudhouse Residency. There, amidst ruins overtaken by nature, I foraged wild clay and other natural materials to make work indicative of my continued fascination with our relationship to place via the natural world and memory.