Tern Over Tide is handmade sgraffito ceramics, each piece thrown on the wheel, then illustrated by hand using a centuries-old technique of drawing through layers of clay. Birds in flight, rolling waves, wildflowers, ocean creatures. Every line is carved freehand. No two pieces are exactly alike.

I spend my days leading a software engineering team, solving problems in systems and code. But for as long as I can remember, my hands have wanted to make things — real, physical things you can hold and use and fill with coffee on a slow morning.

I first found clay about eighteen years ago, took classes, fell in love with it, then got too busy with work and raising four kids. In 2021, I walked back into a ceramics class, and I was hooked all over again. After years of working in the abstract — building things that live on screens — there is something deeply satisfying about centering a lump of stoneware on the wheel and pulling it into a shape that would outlast any app I've ever shipped.

Tern Over Tide is where that love of making meets the place I call home. I live on the coast of Maine, and I'm a sailor. I spend as much time as I can on the water, watching the way light moves across Casco Bay, the birds that wheel above the harbor, the tide pulling in and out over the rocks, the beach roses growing along the shore. That world finds its way into every piece I make.

My work is sgraffito, a centuries-old technique of drawing through layers of clay to reveal the contrasting body beneath. I throw each piece on the wheel, coat it in colored slip, and then carve the design freehand: terns in flight, rolling waves, sea creatures, wildflowers. Lilacs and peonies in spring. Sweet peas climbing in summer. Every line is drawn by hand, no stencils, no transfers. No two pieces are exactly alike.