Ultimately I want my pots to be graceful, elegant, and straightforward.  

Strength lies in the fluidity of opposites – of line and mass, contraction and relaxation, tension and softness, push and pull.  Outside of the studio I enjoy the beauty as well as the physical demands and challenges of being in the outdoors. These pursuits require me to immerse myself in my physical environment and allow me to draw fresh inspiration.  While my body is occupied my mind can wander. They require focus, endurance, power, motion, strength, conservation, grace and balance.  I use my body both in my clay work and in these physical pursuits. I think about and look at bodies, particularly musculature and how it all works together.  There is a tension revealed between the strength and grace of a contracted muscle, between its form and the natural softness of curve and lines of delineation.  My pots are made of opposites similar to those demanded of physical strength.  There exists a subtle tension between pure, controlled form and something looser and more organic.  

These pots reflect how I enjoy touching clay with a focus on the purpose of function and containment. 

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Images from my studio walls:

“It’s all about strength and beauty.”  - Tina Turner, for Hanes, 1996

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Jess Parker was born and raised in Berkeley, California.  Leaving Northern California in 1986 for college and life, Jess received a BA from Pomona College in 1990 and a BFA from Alfred University in 1997. She was a Resident Artist at the Archie Bray Foundation from 1997-1999 and then served on their board of directors from 1999 - 2008. She returned to the Bay Area in 1999 to settle down and raise her family.  Jess currently makes pots at her home studio, co-owns 510-Waterline, a stand up paddleboard company in Richmond, CA., and teaches weekly yoga practices with the Willard Park Yoga Collective.  She values and enjoys the reciprocal learning which naturally happens when teaching and demonstrating how to do things to others.