Off the Porch and Growling

For those of you who know, you know that Kevin is one of the main inspirational potters within my journey in clay. I have taken about six workshops with Kevin over the past twelve or so years, matter of fact my very first teapot was made with Kevin, and the first two pieces of pottery I ever sold were made two years later while in Kevin's workshop.

Anyway, I was like a kid at christmas. One of the things I love about Kevin besides the poetry, and innate humanism is he tailors each worksop to the desires of the people. This one would become teapots, big pots (the mechanics of throwing big) and tea bowls off the hump.

Every day we stopped for lunch, talked about pots, life and just clay in general.We also stopped at three for tea. At three we talked about what was right and what was going wrong. The idea being we should all be out of our comfort level, because being uncomfortable makes you grow ...

We were also asked two introspective questions;

One: If you could only make one pot for eternity what would it be? and why? I chose old fashioned oil lamps for a couple of reasons. I'll through out the thoughts in no particular order, Old fashioned Oil lamps there's a hundred ways to do them for infinite variety, second I like the thought inherent in the process of bringing light into others lives - there are parallels there for me on several levels. Finally, I didn't want to do something most everyone else would do.

Two: Why do you make pots? The simple answer and one that comes up to the top of my head is I am making pieces of myself, in other words when happy, sad, mad, glad, pick an emotion .. whatever it is it will be transated in someway into the clay and the pot being born, Should it survive the fire well then that piece of me is given resolution for all time. What happens to the pot after I give it away, well that is on the person not I. So to me pots are a piece of my soul given form. But it doesn't really answer the question does it?

Simply put I make pots because I have to. I am driven to create in clay, I wake up thinking about it, I think about it all day long, and I go to sleep dreaming of it. Truth.

It was as always a great workshop.

Finally, here are my versions created through the guidance and teaching of Kevin, hope you enjoy them.

Here's my teapot.

And then my big pot, it's not finished at the moment - but there's 14 pounds of clay there at the moment. Whoo - hoo, and this is after cutting off six inches and six pounds.