At first the pieces I made were an exploration of color and form that had the energy I wanted to express while maintaining a sense of quiet reflection.  They started looking like studies of meteors, magnified spores, or sea life except their meaning became more personal with each one I made.  As I worked on this series of pieces I thought a lot about the importance of relationships and the feelings I had when I interacted with family or friends.  I recognized how difficult it was for me to communicate my feelings with people I trusted and cared for.  Without being able to verbalize myself, I realized that I was able to communicate through the forms as they became an embodiment of what I felt.  As I cut into the forms the cut edges began to represent the feeling of being examined, the satiny glaze representing the self healing sap produced by a cut tree limb.  The insides of the Void pieces captured the feeling of being alone, hollow or empty.  Delicate, Tender and Split represent the feeling of vulnerability.  The soft delicate insides are left exposed and unprotected and it demonstrates what I feel when I do share my emotions with others.  Phase came from a series of five pieces that each showed a stage of renewal as the crusty outer layers were sloughed off in order to expose the new, softer more sensitive under layer.  My intent for this body of work is to create visually stimulating forms that will connect to the viewer, allowing them to project their own thoughts into the work.  As most people who struggle to effectively communicate the abstract nature of their feelings I have created tangible objects that help me make those feelings easier to understand.