My pots reflect connection to life and geology in the American South. My work is a physical negotiation between unmoderated materials and collected experience. Searching for useful ceramic material in the local geology demands adventure. In this process, I encounter a range of unplanned wildlife, local people, and defunct infrastructure. Memories of my trips to collect material connect me to the Deep South’s karmic inheritance and shape my understanding of landscape, artifact, and human experience. Working with minimally processed material lets me carry the residue of these confrontations into the studio. There, clay bears witness to my intention and its consequences, recording what is carefully planned alongside what is unforeseen. I am interested in how unprocessed materials can hold a place's contradictions without resolving them. By relinquishing control in the making, I refuse to resolve the cultural realities I have come to know and allow the contradictions of the Deep South to remain present in physical form.