the artist
 
When he discovered the small art workshop at his boarding school on Catalina Island at the age of 14, Heath also discovered his life-long pursuit.  In 1968, when he was 20 years old, Heath opened his first gallery, a nook of a studio in Solana Beach, California.  Ten years later, Heath relocated to Prescott, Arizona, where he lives today.  The move from California to Arizona proved to be fortuitous, as the diversity of the Southwest landscape continues to influence both the forms and glaze colors of Heath’s work.  However, it is impossible to claim that the styles of Heath’s body of work are limited to their immediate Southwestern context.  Far Eastern techniques prove to be a consistent influence in those Heath employs; from elegant Japanese brushwork to raku, Heath draws from traditional Eastern methods that render the body of his work both formal and exotic.  Perhaps this is why his art is collected throughout the United States and internationally by private collectors and museums.  In Heath’s creative endeavors, no style will suffice alone.    Heath approaches the notion of art from multiple angles.  Although ceramics occupies a primary position in his working life, Heath also teaches jazz improvisation to students who consistently go on to pursue music at the highest levels in universities and the urban jazz world.  Heath’s musical relationship with art ultimately compliments his relation with ceramics; for Heath, “art” is always insubstantial outside of the activities in which it is produced.  For Heath, art is a creative process of doing, and it utilizes the most practiced skills as well as consistent experimentation.  Thus, the broad range of his artistic capabilities and the multiplicity of styles in ceramics, specifically, but also implied by the nature of jazz music, reflect an even broader conception of art that encompasses and permeates Heath’s life.