19(b). “Colorado Ceramic Arts”

He has scars on his legs from abscesses where Nepalese leeches once were torn away roughly, leaving residue. He has had shows of his works in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Liège, Belgium.

He speaks fluent Tibetan.

He speaks it because one of his stepfathers was Tibetan, and, as a boy, Ralph lived for years in the Nepalese Himalaya. This is where he first made ceramics: on a hand-turned wheel as a semi-runaway while his mother smoked heroin on Freak Street in Kathmandu. Although he won’t talk about those years, they were the last important time of his life:

when something really happened.