Big life changes!

BIG LIFE CHANGES! Tiffany, June and I have moved to Charleston, South Carolina for her to start a new position at the College of Charleston and for me to focus exclusively on bringing Artaxis into it’s next chapter. For over 20 years, I’ve always done Artaxis on the side, as a volunteer, while juggling an academic position that was being made more difficult by an increasingly unsuppportive administration. As the stress of that arrangement increased year over year, it became too much. This past year was my 20th year teaching outside of grad school – 2 years at Baylor University and 18 years at IU Southeast. I turned 50 years old the same year Artaxis turned 20, and the same year as my 20th year teaching. Leading up to those milestones, I couldn’t help but think: I don’t want to get to the end of my life and regret not trying to do Artaxis as a fulltime endeavor. I don’t want to be on my deathbed and ask myself, “What if?”. So, I’m doing it. We’re doing it. I already had an unpaid leave approved from school to work on Artaxis this coming year, but I’ll be resigning soon and taking the leap to go after my dreams fulltime.

I think I’ve taught somewhere around 1,000 students in my career and working with them (you, if you’re a former student and reading this) has been one of the greatest honors of my life. No matter how bad the administration was, I never took for granted the incredible opportunity to work with so many amazing students. All of the studio improvements and work I put in to build the IUS Ceramics program – I didn’t do it for the university. I did it for the students. Those students are out there in the world carrying that legacy forward, the legacy that my teachers gave me and the teachers of my teachers gave them. The university can never take that away from me, so while I reflect on stepping away from teaching, I’m thinking about all those millions of tiny little moments of progress. Yes, there were some big breakthroughs, but it was the everyday moments of creative expression that I loved the most. I plan to continue that excitement through my work on Artaxis 🙂

I’m excited for the next chapter, but it’s going to be a lot of work to get there. I ask that you consider joining me in bringing Artaxis into the next phase of it’s trajectory. And to everyone that has ever supported me along this path, my friends and colleagues, my parents, my wife and daughter, the Artaxis Board of Directors, my students and everyone I’ve worked with so far, I thank you. Thank you for believing in me and trusting me to do this work.

Let’s goooooooo! ❤️