One Sunday evening in the late '70s, early in our marriage, H and I were strolling in Greenwich Village and caught the tail end of a street fair. I stopped and talked to a potter, and I bought the last four mugs she had. They were blue and gray and could be nested into a stack. I found myself thinking, "I'll bet I can learn to do this." After all, I could draw passably, and write reasonably well. Why not make mugs and bowls? But when kids came, the journey became very busy in other ways.
Seven years after the street fair, H was building his career. We were building a family together; two small children, one in the stroller and one alongside, and another to come in a few years. I was a full time mother and cook-and-bottle-washer. I did not want to fold another piece of laundry or cook another thing till I at least looked for my groove, as they used to say in my childhood back in a different day.
I found a private teacher, who was a grad student at the nearby college. (I couldn't get into Ceramics I at the college without being a full-time matriculated student.) One evening a week for three months, I went to her studio in East Rutherford, NJ and Wendy taught me how to "throw" on the potter's wheel. The next semester I matriculated as an English major, and enrolled in Ceramics I class at the college. Within a year I bought my first kickwheel, followed it with my first electric kiln, and a single metal shelf unit to hold wares in progress. I set up in a different corner of the basement from the sump pump or the washer and dryer. Even if I couldn't give it enough time, clay became my new best friend. Sometimes when I was too busy to work with clay I just went down and sat on a lower step to the basement and looked at what had been made so far and thought about what I would do next.
I wish I could tell you I became a potter right away, but it took a really long time. I continued at the ceramics studio at the college for six semesters, always taking classes in the the evening so I could still do most everything else at home. I went through Ceramics I, Ceramics II, Advanced Ceramics, and Whitewares- white earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. Between semesters I once took a two-credit class where we students built a brick gas kiln for the studio. At the end of my sixth semester, all us long-timers (by then we had a group of probably six enthusiasts) got tossed out of the Ceramics department for using too much clay and glaze materials, and taking up wheel and table spaces new students could use. I was 30 years old by then, with three little ones, and no sense of who I was in clay... except that I really liked to make bowls and loved working on the wheel.
Potter, ca perhaps 2002. (Photo credit: David Stadler)
I was a young, energetic, fired-up 27 years old when I starting honing my pottery skills. I returned and finished my BA in English at age 39 (cum laude, yo!), but seemed to have no time to sustain a couple of hours in my basement studio most days till the tired haze of evening. I began writing children's picture books (still unpublished- priority someday??), and got communally involved.
At very long last, when the kids got into their teens, I made clay into my day job. By the time I got my BA, I had belonged to the Potters Guild of NJ for a dozen years, gone to good clay workshops, accumulated a decent library of ceramics information, and watched many how-to videos. I had drawn hundreds of sketches, thought through many design ideas, and logged hundreds of hours at the wheel and glaze table. I had met some wise people along the way who said or did something to make me stretch further as a maker of objects. It all took some time to settle into my full time work.
Half a lifetime after first touching clay, I finally built my gallery and website.
I had lots of physical strength when I had little ones in my arms. All these years later, I teach private students, work to market my pottery to stores, and maintain my own display space. Marketing the work is probably my biggest challenge, although the physical labor is not simple either. Because I am middle aged, I have to work smarter. Working on new designs has to come after I've done what is on the already-proven design list, but I also keep planning new work. In a bigger picture, one must keep to a seasonal production schedule, driven by sales patterns, holidays, and trends (tureens in October, ice cream bowls in May). It isn't simple. But most of the time I am working towards a goal I love, like the many other potters I know. It is deeply habit forming.