 My father has been doing furniture for a very long time and a lot of his language comes from the French Art Deco, which was around the 20s and even before that. And I love its aesthetic. I find it very clean, very crisp. There's a huge interest in material and scanning the world for some of the most precious and prized materials, which I think as we have evolved as artists, myself I'm not pursuing it to that extent, but I liked that it was based in form, it was based in tactility, it was based in material. And I strive for that a lot in my work. I was introduced to clay probably older than most people in high school, and I really enjoyed its malleability. It didn't really fight you very much, so I think that's why a lot of people at young ages are attracted to it. It's easy to manipulate. But I also love that it transforms, it goes from something so malleable, so soft, and it goes through a process that creates kind of the antithesis of that. It becomes hard, immalleable, and maintains form. So I like that contradiction a lot. I'd consider myself first and foremost a formalist, meaning I really try to apply my aesthetics to the form. But I think when you're dealing with ceramic in particular, it becomes a very functional object. Something like this was very much a good amalgamation between the two, form and function, something that I think looks very unique, but also lends itself to an ergonomic function for drinking out of. So absolutely, it's a combination between the two. And I think things naturally evolve from there. They start one place and end in another, and I'm not sure that I'm conscious of why that is, but it's a process that's inherent in art and necessary. You know, things always evolve, and that's good. I create things as I see them, and I hope that it connects with the larger audience, and I think it does. But I hope that they are... I hope they observe the craft that's been implemented, and I think that craft requires a lot of execution, and that's what I strive to do. I strive to have an idea, meditate with it, and then build it. And that's often really difficult to do, and I think that in a world that manufactures objects so well, it's hard to see how people on an individual scale are capable of doing the same thing. And when it's executed to that extent, I think there's a lot of value in that, and I hope that people can pick up on that, because a lot of people are really good at it, and it's a hard world to compete when you're competing with machines that can do it better than you can. MECA has facilitated a very open learning environment, meaning there is a curriculum, there's a core value that the school wants you to learn by. But it also gives you an immense amount of freedom to be independent and to think in terms that aren't necessarily about curriculum, they're not about grades, they're not about fulfilling requirements, it's about expressing yourself to the best ability. If that means that you go outside of the assignment or you talk with your teacher and you discuss maybe something that's more conducive to what you want to say with your work, there are 100% behind that and willing to work with you, so that's huge. When you have support, you have community, and people are on your side, that's a good recipe for success. Eventually I'd like to start making work and selling it and start a business. How I'm going to do that, I don't know. How it will evolve, I'm not quite sure, but in the meantime I'm very happy with the direction my work is going in and I hope it connects with people. Portland is such a supportive community, so I feel that this is a good place for my ideas to evolve and I think they'll be received well. So that's good.