I remember when I was a student at Antioch University in Columbia Maryland I would tape newspaper to my wheel head and paint perfect circles as I turned my wheel on and off and held my hand steady. I was chasing an idea of perfection.
Recently I was pursuing the question of how to express an idea visually. At the end of my day in the studio I cleaned off the plywood table,mixed up my black glaze and I dipped my fat skunk tail brush in black glaze and let it run until the drips slowed down and ran my hand across the bowl so that I got a line of drips and an asymmetrical circle on a series of white bowls.
When I revisited painting circles it was a moment of re-examining an old idea. I think of my work as being like traveling along a gentle upward spiraling path. I make a loop and revisit ideas and by the time I come back to them I have traversed a big circle and I am looking at the idea from a slightly different angle. It is not pure repetition but readdressing old ideas with new vision experience and hopefully insight. I am not just documenting answers but always chasing a more interesting question.
Above is a close-up of the drawing; below is the inspiration for this series of plates & drawings. 
This plate, from a recent gas firing, was inspired by night snow. For those of us weary of winter the vernal equinox marks a shift in balance and new beginnings both in the garden and in general outlook. If only nature would cooperate. 
Urban myth has it that when Bob Dylan first heard the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he only made it through the first few songs. He turned it off afraid his own creative process might be influenced or blocked by the inspiration of the Beatles. I find that I need to look at lots of stuff. I need the stimulation of other artists and visions to translate and focus my own ideas. My motivation grows by seeing other versions of excellence. I remember being inspired by 
