Dann States, " My aim is to create objects which communicate the sense of wonder and joy I experience in the natural world around me. While aware of violence, pollution and injustice in this same world, I prefer to deal with them in areas of my life other than my art. I like making shapes and glazes that invoke images of leaves, flowers, lichen, sea life, gem crystals, snowflakes and celestial bodies. I want my forms to be beautiful to a traditionalist or a non-traditionalist, to an educated person or an uneducated one, now and in the future.

I prefer making functinal forms because of the intimacy and feeling of communication which comes from having my work touched and enjoyed by other human beings in their daily lives. I believe that it is more challenging to make a work of art which can perform a function- in additon to an aesthetic one- than a work of art which can not.

While I enjoy working in stoneware at times, my favorite medium is porcelain. To me porcelain has a sensuous appeal, both in its wet state, when it is so responsive to shaping fingers, and in its fired state when its glazed surface feels so buttery and resounds, bell-like, when struck.

Crystalline glazes intrigue me. To my knowledge, they are the only glazes new to this century in their fully developed form, having been made possible by modern precision kiln controls. Yet these glazes look as ancient as agate geodoes. I like using them on simple but new and original forms. At times I feel almost addicted to these highly unpredictable glazes. When the results are good, the sense of wonder never grows old.

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