Ann Morris has become a priestess of sorts, investing her mind and spirit into an ambitious oeuvre of figurative bronzes that speak with a singular and meditative voice. In a comprehensive and insightful essay, Ted Lindberg traces the arc of Morris's artistic development from her beginnings as a mother, philosophy student, and Pasadena printmaker, to her reclusion on the wind-swept bluffs of Lummi Island in north Puget Sound. There Morris has created an extraordinary bronze park that she calls Sculpture Woods, a 15-acre sanctuary of stately forest and highbank waterfront that is home to her studio and to a winding path populated by 16 sculptural tableaus seen through a Jungian lens. Monumental figures emerge from the forest, as if stepping through a rift in time from the mists of classical and Celtic antiquities, to tell their archetypal tales. In a second essay, Jake Seniuk muses on how Morris moved from such overtly mythological themes to a kind of talismanic naturalism when she turned to an ongoing series of more intimately scaled bronzes that trace an ongoing Bone Journey. Unfolding her own creation myth through her work, Morris remains true to the marriage of the Platonic and the aboriginal, where a clear-eyed awareness of mortality is liberating and transcendent.

For three decades, nationally renowned ceramist Anne Hirondelle has pushed the boundaries of traditional pottery, producing beautiful works that appear warmly alive and visually engaging. From her early majestic urns to her architectural impulse for sedate forms to her bright ropes of clay coiling to the sky, she keeps exploring new possibilities without rejecting the traditions of her chosen material.

Hirondelle's Port Townsend, Washington, studio is the nexus of her creative and imaginative life. The works she has produced in that space have been exhibited in numerous one-person shows throughout the United States. Among the many museums whose collections include her work are the Crocker Art Museum; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Tacoma Art Museum; and the White House Collection housed at the William J. Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.

"Anne Hirondelle's feet are firmly planted in clay." "-American Craft"

Jo Lauria is a curator and design historian. Her most recent publications are "Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects" and "California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Craft and Style." She lives in the Los Angeles area. Jake Seniuk is an artist and executive director of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center and Webster Woods Art Park.