POTTING HISTORY
I fell in love with clay during my senior-year of high school…
With an angel-on-earth teacher, Robin Craig, we made whistles, threw on the wheel, learned hand-building, and made a teapot as our final project.
When I graduated and went to Penn State from 2007 - 2010, my very favorite schoolwork-stress-reliever was The Creative Oasis; a pottery studio on Beaver Avenue (the current location of Webster’s Bookstore & Cafe, so to be fair, still one of my favorite places.)
But then, I moved away and got really into the careery-ness of all the jobbing… and then, even when I moved back to central PA, I was still pretty caught up in all of the jobbiness (and the blogging).
I didn’t rediscover ceramics until 2021 when ZB bought me a class at The Rivet. It was called Wheel Throwing: A Crash Course; and that was all it took to get back into it!
I started making lots of things, as one does, and settling into the process. As I experimented and allowed myself to play, a clear and very me-style emerged. COLOR. Which ones? All. Rainbow please.
The Rivet is my happy place now — each cycle of wedging, shaping, firing, and glazing easing the stress-weight that so reliably makes its home on my shoulders. The energy in this place oozes creativity, acceptance, and a willingness to try. All of the staff and volunteers are so knowledgeable, patient, and kind, and I've gathered a little misfit crew of makerfriends.
CLAY, as a subject, is deeper than the 64 gallon trash cans they use to recycle our beloved clay bodies — white bear and brown bear and everyone’s favorite boyfriend, Tony Beaver. When my attention wanders, there’s always a task to be done, bisque to look at, a hack to blow my mind, or a friend to chat with on the other side of the studio.
The moment I get sick of the wheel, I can shift gears to hand-building, or carving, or painting, or mason stains, or transfers, or any number of infinity things to learn and try.