Lately, I have been making some functional work for a couple of craft shows. Here I am working in the studio...

I am always making mugs with different decorations on the outside, keeping that same "tulip" shape with the pronounced foot (you can see some on the left in this picture, waiting to be fired, and some to the right, completed).

The baskets are new for me, and each has its own character. Some are more structured and evenly woven, and some are very amorphous and more vine/nest-like. I am enjoying making them, and am currently using one in my house as a bread basket!

I have also been making necklaces with clay pendants...these are fun, because they combine my love of beadwork with ceramics. The patterns are made by rolling lace over the clay, or using stamps to create textures that capture the glazes nicely.

These vases to the right (scroll down to see all of them) are the first in a collection I have been working on that explores the creepy, poisonous or weird aspects of nature that I find repulsive and try to make beautiful. Chromium Lily is glazed with a poisonous glaze inside, because I was thinking about how some plants and flowers are dangerous to ingest. I thought it would be interesting to make a pitcher that could never be safely used for food, but is beautiful to look at. There are so many animals and plants that use strange survival tactics in nature, and with each vase I am trying to intertwine that oddity with a ceramic form.

Because each vase takes about a month to complete, I really feel as though I am living in a microcosm of our natural world each time I create one. I try to choose subjects that will be difficult for me to think about, feel, and create with my hands, like the spider in Hidden Within. My psychologist sister would say I am running my own form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for myself through some of these pieces!

I have a fear of bunches of eggs or holes, which I call "creeps" and share with my mom and sisters. Recently my mom found a website that names this fear! See trypophobia.com, or look up the word in Urban Dictionary. All these years, we thought it was a Mahoney family oddity! Some of my recent works deal with this fear, as seen in the suction cups on Blue Ringed Octopus Vase or the eggs on the inside edges of Cane Toads: Breeding Ground.