Thesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY.My relationship to the pot is fundamental to how I identify as an artist and how I inhabit forms. Objects begin as vessels with the potential to become abstracted representations of the human (female) figure, flowers, fruit or other elements of the natural world. As I build, the size of the object grows and becomes similar in scale to that of a torso. This similarity emphasizes the relationship between the object and the human body. If looking down from above, the mouth of the vessel is open and wide, and the interior of the volume is generous. Building vessels is an ode to my first personal encounter with ceramics, the material and to the historical traditions it carries, using the surface of pots to create pattern and narrative that visually describes my vision - vision as something of great beauty - vision as envisioning contemporary life.