Living peacefully among the cedars, pine and oak near Bass Lake, California, Dave Caris is a yogi who works with clay much like a sculptor – except his iconic masks, faces, totems and vessels are not of actual people, but rather express deep feelings three-dimensionally, some very whimsically.

“Clay allows me a sensuous and expressive way to open to deeper, more hidden, feelings and to convey that mystery in my pieces. Sometimes I feel that the granite and big trees just outside my studio exist in my work in another form. It is exactly that opening to the indefinable, yet real, that I seek to share in my work.”

His interest in ceramics first began when he was a pilot in the Air Force, and regularly flying himself over the endless, dark ocean, steering by the stars, to Morocco. Formal education in art started at the Cleveland Institute of Art, in Ohio, and continued at California State University. “I have worked with wood, canvass and cut paper over the last fifty years, but it is clay to which I always return. Clay allows me the flow of embodied imagination that I seek to capture in my work. For me, working with clay is very much like the yoga I live and teach: centered on the breath and opening the body to the unknowable divine.”

Dave is drawn to art that is graceful, colorful and unique. He especially likes the work of Picasso, Miro and a contemporary, Alexander Flores. “I want my work to pique a person’s interest, to make them wonder. I am always exploring, looking for new expression.”

To go to Dave's website click HERE.

Dave’s eMail: dcaris@sti.net

Facebook: fb://profile/1127878293