Welcome! While I am new to the online scene, I have been learning and practicing hand built pottery for a few years now. My love of pottery has been long standing. I have always admired those who could create such beautiful vessels and I craved to learn the process and life of the potter. Here is the story of how I became a potter and the events that shaped me as an artist.
My initial introduction was like most people, at stores and craft fairs. The first time I created with clay was in slip form. As a teenager, I had the opportunity to create poured ceramics on a military base in Japan where my father was stationed. I first took classes, bought all the tools and bottles of slip, then I was on my own to choose molds to rent and pour what ever I liked. I loved the ceramic community and comradery that we shared in the ceramic shop, and I spent as many happy hours as I could creating numerous ceramic pieces. I kept my favorites and gifted others to my friends and family.
After leaving the base and country, my next experience was when I went to college at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurenburg, NC. As it happened, I was assigned to a teacher advisor and mentor who was an artist, named Anne Woodson. She introduced the freshman required class SAGE (St. Andrews General Education) through an exploration of clay. We read a couple of wonderful books called Finding Ones Way with Clay, Pinched Pottery and the Color of Clay by Paulus Berensohn, and Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person by Mary Richards. Daily we created and worked on simple vessels through pinch pot method and coils, firing in a hand built brick kiln as well as through other methods like burying under smoldering embers and in a trash can (Raku). We used glazes we created ourselves using powders she had on hand as well as natural ingredients. It was a wonderful experience and she was the perfect person to introduce college life and the creative mindset to me. Her passion for art and creating was inspiring, and I was blessed when I found out that she was to be the instructor that would lead myself and a group of other students on a study abroad program for a semester to the Italian Alps, where we lived at Brunnenburg Castle, home of Mary deRachewiltz, daughter of poet Ezra Pound. While there we studied the poetry of Ezra Pound, worked in the vineyards, orchards and around the castle and created and studied art both at the castle and in front of master pieces in Rome, Florence and other cities and towns in Italy. It was a magical and unforgettable experience!
During my semester abroad in Italy, I became best friends with a fellow student. She and I learned a lot about each other and to my great pleasure, I found out that she had a brother who was a potter. He was, and is a master potter in Seagrove, NC. To my great joy, I got to go home to Seagrove with my friend and got to observe her brother creating beautiful, hand thrown, functional, stoneware pottery. Every chance I got, I visited her hometown with her and enjoyed visiting with her brother and learning about his craft as well as visiting the many other potters in the Seagrove area. Seagrove, NC is a pottery mecca where one can visit many potteries and purchase their wares. I made many a purchase myself, but did not peruse creating pottery again until much later in my life.
I moved to Charlottesville, VA in 1989 with my best friend from St. Andrews, where we both attended UVA graduate school and where we both ended up calling home. We both met and married our spouses as well as raised our children in the Charlottesville area. My husband of 26 years is also a creative soul. While I spent 30 years teaching in the public school system, I joined my husband in his many creative endeavors. We were always trying to make a go of some manner of making. For example, when my oldest child was born we were in the throughs of making plaster crafts, which we hand poured into molds. We mixed the plaster in our kitchen or on our back deck and poured it into plastic molds we had purchased. The molds with plaster dried in our living room supported on long strips of wood. Once dry enough, we would pop them out of the molds and eventually paint them. This endeavor, like many others we tried, was not successful.
Success did eventually come however, when my husband decided to make candles as a joke with his younger brother, who had been tinkering with the process. They started out initially with paraffin chunk candles. They experimented with the candles and scents and even sold some at markets. My husband’s brother ended up quitting candle making, but my husband decided to go out on his own and ventured first into soy container candles and then into his present wax, feathered palm wax. He created and made many of his own pieces of equipment and chose a candle design which makes his candles unique. He officially started his own candle company called Fort Blenheim Candles when we lived in the Blenheim area outside of Charlottesville and he built a play fort in our back yard for our kids, named Fort Blenheim. Over the years, we decided that the candles would benefit from an add on, candle plates. Initially, I hand dipped (hydro dipped) glass plates, creating unique designs on the plates. We found that these sold pretty well along with the candles. We wanted to expand this idea and make plates from different mediums. We had a mold from our plaster days and we set out to create concrete plates. This attempt worked, but was too heavy and not very versatile for us. Eventually I suggested making pottery plates and I began taking pottery classes to try and learn how to make them and other things from pottery. I took a number of sessions from a potter who had her own studio and offered classes. She taught me hand building techniques and helped me develop my signature plate mold. My husband and I set up space for me to work on pottery in his candle shop and I practiced at home too. Eventually, we invested further into my pottery endeavors and bought a used kiln which we had wired and installed in out small shop! That was the beginning of our pottery production! We eventually changed our candle business name to reflect the addition of pottery and called it Fort Blenheim Candle Works.
A year and a half ago we found our dream home and finished the basement to become our candle and pottery shop. It is a dream come true, though we are quickly wishing for even more space! I retired from 30 years of teaching and our company has become very successful and my pottery making more prolific and improved. I have taken more classes, most recently at our local community college. The instructor is an extremely experienced and professional potter whose teaches with clarity and provides his students with challenges which allow them to explore and grow in technique and form. I am very thankful for my time in his classes and the knowledge that I carry over into my own work in my home studio today.