My studio work in graduate school was primarily in drawing and painting, but during my final semester I took a graduate ceramic class with a young faculty adjunct, Ken Little. He was very enthusiastic about clay and before we created he had us interact by “playing” clay games. Small groups of students had to take clay and create the tallest form possible on the work tables. Individually, we closed our eyes and experienced the tactile nature of the medium while he provided the dialogue. For me, it was “love” at first touch. I didn't know then it would become the major occupation of my life.

The next encounter with clay came while I was teaching art in Volusia County. Our art supervisor, Dorothy Johnson brought many talented artists to provide in-service education to our art teachers. Her first artist-in-schools was a potter, Craig Bryson. He demonstrated wheel- throwing. I went to the Daytona Junior College in the evening to learn how to throw on the potter's wheel.
In 1978, I returned to St. Petersburg and sent up a pottery studio and built a Raku kiln. The Clay Factory in Tampa invited, Paul Soldner, to give a workshop. He is given the honor and title of the “Father of American Raku.”
http://www.paulsoldner.com
The picture from this link shows me at Festival of Masters in Lake Buena Vista with my Third Place Sculpture, 2005. I also won Third Place in 2004 and Second place in 2003.
Other Recognition:

      45th Space Coast Art Festival, Coco Beach, FL              Third Place Sculpture 2010

Melbourne Fine Arts Festival, Melbourne, FL   Second Sculpture 2009

Celebration Arts Festival, Lake Buena Vista, FL              Third Place Sculpture 2006

Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, Tampa, FL                               I Merit Award 2005

Isle of 8 Flag Festival, Fernandina Beach, FL                     First Place Sculpture 2005
Artist Enhancement Grant in 2005 to attend National Council for Education of the Ceramic Arts
in Baltimore—NCECA http://www.nceca.net

Acrobatic Cat with Two Dough Boys and a Dough Girl We Shouldn't Have Put Our Oranges in this
Bush-el Basket