Paul Blais is new to the clay world, but he’s been a successful entrepreneur throughout his life. He was kind enough to invite me for an interview on his new itunes podcast, The Potters Cast. Follow the link below for the show notes and to hear the interview!
I like to download the episodes on my iphone podcast app and stream them while making or glazing pots, or on road trips. Paul has a second podcast, called Doubt the Doubts, with almost 200 interviews. I think potters can learn a lot from his background as an successful businessperson and from the information he’s collected from hundreds of successful people.
Additionally, here are a few shows that I’ll be attending and putting on this summer:
512 miles down a single stretch of highway led me straight to Prairie Fire Pottery. After almost 2 weeks of clay work, learning about pottery business, and relaxing with friends and cats, I feel thankful for such an amazing experience.
“My work is highly influenced by the North Dakota land…I grew up here, my soul is imprinted in the land.” – Tama Smith, owner of Prairie Fire Pottery.
This image below shows how Tama draws inspiration for her glazing and colors directly from North Dakota landscapes. Her glaze studio is full of photography.
Tama’s strongest voice comes out through her glazes: “In grad school, my teacher said, ‘Any potter can make cups and bowls. Your surfaces will set you apart.’ I don’t make much work in clay because I love glazing and firing the kiln.” I can’t wait to see how she uses my pots as canvases for her abstract landscapes.
Tama and I still found a way to collaborate in clay, as she learned my handle pulling technique and pulled over 100 handles for these tall, “car cup holder” mugs. Both our signatures are included on every pot, along with any other studio helpers that participate in the Praire Fire Pottery workshop. Check the Prairie Fire Pottery website in the near future to find these tall mugs, small dandelion vases, and square, casserole bakers that Tama will glaze in the coming months:
Visiting other potteries gave me perspective on the huge variety of ways that potters make a living. I bought a pot at Dakotah Clayworks in Hebron, ND at their self-serve gallery!
Stay tuned for more of my work showing up in American Craft Council and Ceramics Monthly, as I’ve been accepted to write in upcoming publications online and in print!
Lastly, my online store is finally back up and running, with mugs, cups and a few speciality pots, like collaborative pots with renowned painter Paige Dansinger. Paige is moving to a new gallery in Minneapolis! We have plans to perform collaborative art making and show work in her new space.
About three weeks ago, Joel traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to attend NCECA 2014. The national ceramics conference brought together potters and pottery enthusiasts from across the country to celebrate all things clay. One of the greatest takeaways from the conference for Joel was when he met Carole Epp, writer of the popular ceramics blog Musing About Mud. The two hit it off immediately, and Carol invited him to write an emerging artist’s post for her blog.
Here’s a link the article Joel wrote. The post describes what NCECA was like for Joel as an emerging potter and what he learned from the contemporary ceramics community.
As the Amtrack roars across the plains of North Dakota, Joel watches the fields outside his window fade back into the landscapes of Central Minnesota. He reads a Snowboarder magazine to pass the time, and his mind instantly returns to skiing fresh powder at Big Sky three days earlier. Before the moment fades, he snaps a picture. Perhaps it’ll give him inspiration when he returns to the wheel. Since he was 3 years old, Joel has taken yearly trips like this one out to the Rockies. They are his second home, and as a result, they appear on his pottery. Drawing inspiration from his former professor and mentor Sam Johnson, who signs many of his pots with a simple-line landscape drawing, Joel signs each piece with an image of the mountains.
Pottery signatures offer us an intimate look at where an artist’s inspiration hides. Sam says his signature represents the flat landscape where he grew up, in western Minnesota. In Joel’s case, the mountains are a symbol of moving forward. They not only show the foundation from which he builds his art, but they show an image of where he wants to go.
“I want you to feel like you’ve got a mountain of clay to work with.” – Sam Johnson
For Joel, the mountains symbolize where he’s going. They find a home on every pot he makes.
In practically every creative writing workshop, beginning writers hear the motto, “Write what you know.” With pottery it’s no different. Potters pull inspiration from the world around them and try to bring these inspirations to life in their work. Perhaps the most revealing aspects of a potter’s art then, are the elements he/she leaves constant. The inspirations that continually find a home in their work.
With this in mind, let’s return to the mountains on Joel’s mugs. As new life circumstances reshape his pottery, Joel still draws mountains on every pot. While he calls them, “a symbol to where he’s going,” I read them as a testament to where he’s been. They stay constant while nearly everything else changes around him, offering a link between the past, present, and future. Look at his glazing for instance. The mountains come to life in the way the dark blues meet the pale Nuka glaze like the sky meets a snowy mountaintop. In everything from his abstract expressionist glazing to his simple-line signature, the mountains are present.
The Nuka and Cobalt glazes on this bowl remind me of a snowy mountaintop as it meets the dark blue glaze near the lip.
It’s strange to think that an annual ski trip could have such a large influence on somebody’s pottery. But that’s the joy of art; inspiration hits often when the artist least expects it. He may be on a train barreling across North Dakota, and BAM, there it is. Steven Hill, a potter who I mentioned in my last post, describes finding inspiration like climbing a mountain. In Tales of the Red Clay Ramblerpodcast Steven Hill is interviewed by fellow potter Ben Carter. Hill says:
This pot shows a realistic representation of a midwestern landscape. Notice how the porcelain slip represents clouds, cobalt blue looks like birds, and raw clay near the bottom resembles a horizon line. The creamy, gray glaze feels like a winter sky.
“I feel like we all need to have something that we’re searching for that’s out of our grasp. It’s kind of like you’re climbing a mountain. Once you get to the peak there’s no where to go except down. And the search for a better resolution, a better curve, a better surface…a better something that’s always been elusive of my grasp, but it’s always been right out in front of me and I’ve never attained it.”
Successful full-time artists rarely separate themselves from their work. They always look for inspiration, even in the strangest places. If you follow Joel on Instagram, you’ll see how his obsession with rock music, rock culture, and skiing all influence his pottery. True to this culture, he even has a large tattoo of his pottery signature on his arm. Many historically famous potters spoke about synthesis of life and art. In short, the two fuel each other, providing moments of inspiration when we least expect them.
“…it is obvious that Shoji [Hamada] approached his life and work in a holistic manner, and that his workshop, house, clothes, and lifestyle were all related to his greater motivation for working in clay.”
Jar by Peter Swanson, from Phil Rogers, “Ash Glazes.” Joel’s Nuka glaze recipe came out of this book, and he’s conducted over 300 tests to experiment with the glaze at varying temperatures, between cone 6 and 13. The drips of iron on this stunning pot exemplify an abstract depiction of a mountainous landscape.
When Joel went to see Bill Gossman at a small pottery workshop in New London, the time-tested artist wedged, centered, and threw 25-50lb. blocks of clay at a time. These blocks, impressive in themselves, soon became massive 3-4ft. jugs that Gossman needed to finish in multiple sections. If you have ever thrown pottery or seen somebody throw pottery, then you’ll understand the effort Gossman needed just to raise that amount of clay once. He did it three times per jug.
Click the image to view Joel’s Facebook album of the “Gossman and Morris Workshop”
As someone who’s only thrown about ten functional mugs in his life, potters like Gossman amaze me. They possess an unparalleled dedication to their craft. And like any professional athlete, these guys will often spend years practicing and perfecting their work before they receive any recognition.
Reitz working long hours at a 2009 pottery conference in Flagstaff, AZ.
Consider someone like Don Reitz for example. When Joel went to see the 84 year old potter at a 2009 workshop in Flagstaff, AZ, Reitz started working before anyone else in the morning and stayed well over an hour late each night. In only 2 days, Reitz went through 2 wheelbarrows full of clay! These pictures show only a small sample of Reitz’s work, but listen to him discuss it here for the full story.
Warning -it gets emotional.
Years after the conference, Joel contacted Reitz. This workshop directly led to Joel’s creation of Mindscape, and Joel wanted to connect with Reitz by sending him a cup or two as a thanks. Still humble after years at the wheel, Reitz wrote back saying, “A cup is not necessary, I’m just happy to know that my work is appreciated. Also, watch the movie The World’s Fastest Indian. Rent it or whatever. It’s about TOTAL COMMITMENT.”
As spectators to art, we only see the final product. We never see the hours of studio-time behind the world’s fastest motorcycle or even a massive clay sculpture. We see the game, but we don’t see the practice. What I’ve learned from hearing the stories of people like Gossman, Reitz, and Joel is that to make beautiful pieces of art, a potter needs to balance inspiration with dedication. Like Reitz says, he needs TOTAL COMMITMENT by immersing himself in the clay.
Michael Cardew was a historically famous potter that lived a tough life partly by choice and also by circumstance. While in Africa, he made pottery in places where water was so scarce, he had to use caustic wood ashes to make clay more plastic. Joel often looks at Cardew’s biography when he needs motivation, especially in the more difficult times of his career. Here’s a quote from the book that I feel speaks well to Joel’s pottery. Joel first heard it from his friend and author Ken Ferber. It says:
“…a good design in pottery is the product of a tension or ‘dialect’ between the demands of pure utility and those of pure beauty, and only a long experience and continual struggle enables you to achieve a successful fusion of the two.”
-Michael Cardew
The biography goes on to describe Cardew as a potter with “athleticism” and his work with clay as, “direct, physical and urgent.” I think you could prescribe the same qualities to almost any professional potter, especially guys like Gossman and Reitz who continue to make massive ceramic pieces throughout the second half of their career. These guys are making a statement through their effort. And in many ways, their art then becomes the direct expression of this effort.
8ft. tall Wheel-thrown clay sculpture by Peter Voulkos, converted to bronze, Minneapolis Institute of Art, photo by Joel Cherrico, 2009
A lot of this philosophy parallels the Abstract Expressionistschool of thought which was made popular by artists like Jackson Pollack and Peter Voulkos. Joel himself draws heavily from the abstract expressionists. He feels abstract expressionism has the potential to foster a healthy lifestyle through clay. Mindscape was Joel’s first experiment with abstract expressionism, but even with his functional pottery or hump throwing demonstrations, he likes the almost unconscious movement of working through 50lbs. of clay spinning on the wheel. For him, clay becomes an expression that’s at every moment “direct, physical, and urgent.”
2,000lbs Stoneware + 3 flights of stairs = afternoon workout
