Nature Inspired Art Rooted in Lake Michigan
Nature Inspired Art has always been at the heart of my ceramic practice. More specifically, my work has become a study in Lake Michigan ceramic art — surfaces shaped by sand, wind, water, and the quiet rhythm of the shoreline. Lately, I’ve been testing glazes again, revisiting formulas I worked with 30 years ago, and returning to an ongoing internal conversation about surface and restraint. I keep circling back to the idea of tone on tone.
Think of a fabric woven with a thread only slightly different from its ground — a pattern revealed quietly, not loudly. How might I create a ceramic surface that reflects the lakeshore in that same subtle way? Sand against sand. Water against sky. Movement within restraint. The challenge is to let the form carry the landscape without illustrating it.
In 2000, I read The Beauty of Everyday Things by Soetsu Yanagi. My clay work has long leaned toward an Asian aesthetic, and Yanagi’s philosophy shaped my understanding of humility in objects. This past month I revisited an editorial reflecting on his ideas and was struck again by his observations about Americans and our relationship to things. Writing in the 1950s, he described a society already stressed, already seeking relief. That feels remarkably current.
Lake Michigan Ceramic Art
As I work toward quiet simplicity in my Lake Michigan ceramic art, I notice my impatience — the tension between making what I know will sell and making what genuinely speaks to me. Slowing down enough to discover something authentic requires trust.
If I stay with these questions — if I wrestle honestly with surface, form, and restraint — I believe a new body of work will emerge. And at its core, it will remain what has always guided me: nature inspired art that reflects the lakeshore not through obvious imagery, but through subtle surface, quiet color, and the feeling of standing at the water’s edge.
Take care, Cyndi
