Studio Journal

Some discoveries come quickly, like a sudden burst of inspiration. Others take years of patient experimentation, countless failures, and the willingness to start over again and again. My signature blue glaze—the one that now graces my most popular ceramic pieces—belongs firmly in the second category.

The journey began three years ago, when I visited the coast of Cantabria during a particularly grey November. The sea that day was the most extraordinary color—not quite blue, not quite green, with depths that seemed to change with every shift of light. I knew immediately that I wanted to capture that color in glaze, but I had no idea how difficult that would prove to be.

"Every failure taught me something. Each kiln opening was either a disappointment or a lesson—sometimes both."

Glaze chemistry is a humbling pursuit. You can follow recipes precisely and still end up with something completely unexpected. The clay body, the firing temperature, even the humidity on the day you apply the glaze—all of these variables can transform your results. I filled three notebooks with glaze tests, mixing cobalt and copper oxides in different proportions, adjusting flux levels, trying different firing schedules.

The breakthrough came unexpectedly, as breakthroughs often do. I had mixed a test batch using a slightly different clay body, and when I opened the kiln, there it was—that elusive color from the Cantabrian coast, somehow captured in ceramic. I actually cried. Three years of work, hundreds of failed tests, and finally the sea was there in my hands.

Now, every time I apply that glaze, I think of that grey November day and the long road that led from inspiration to realization. The journey, I've come to understand, is as valuable as the destination.

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"Why do you paint spoons and onions?" It's a question I get asked often, usually with a note of polite confusion. In a world of dramatic subjects and bold statements, my choice to paint humble kitchen objects might seem almost perversely understated. But there's a reason I keep returning to these quiet subjects.

The tradition of still life painting stretches back centuries, and for good reason. When you paint an onion, you're not just painting a vegetable—you're capturing light, texture, the subtle gradations of color that most people never notice. You're asking the viewer to slow down, to really look at something they've seen a thousand times but never truly seen.

"The extraordinary hides within the ordinary, waiting patiently for us to notice."

There's also something deeply meditative about the process. Setting up a still life takes time—finding the right objects, arranging them, waiting for the light. Then the painting itself unfolds slowly, brush stroke by brush stroke. In our age of constant stimulation, this slowness feels almost radical.

Each painting in my kitchen series started with a moment of noticing. The way morning light caught a spoon left on the counter. How a pile of onions from the market arranged themselves in the bowl. These moments of unexpected beauty are everywhere, if we take the time to see them.

My hope is that when someone hangs one of these paintings in their home, it becomes a gentle reminder to pay attention—to find the extraordinary in their own ordinary moments.

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