I want to thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement about my first attempts at making pots.
I’ve come to this endeavor late in life. The immediate catalyst was my mother-in-law’s passing and my desire to honor her with an urn for her ashes made by my own hands from clay from our land.
I’ve long been interested in ceramics. Some years ago, I had the good fortune to do a book on twenty North Carolina potters, The Living Tradition, for the North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove and we’re surrounded by many friends and neighbors who are potters. Leslie and I have collected much of their work, which is continually inspiring.
I love having the clay in my hands - molding it, shaping it, arguing with it. It’s akin to gardening, having my hands in the dirt. It’s soothing, relaxing, and tactile in a way that photography and writing cannot begin to duplicate.
I can’t begin to say enough about Josh Copus. He generously and graciously has allowed me to come to his studio and play at my own speed, which is nothing but slow. He is not so much a teacher as a guide — encouraging, suggesting, advising, always positive and enthusiastic about his own work and mine. He guides by example and his intensity and energy are infectious. I couldn’t ask for more.
So, thank you, Josh. You’ve given me more than you know — a new way of seeing, a new voice. And as I look at my very elemental first pieces, I understand it is never too late to try something new and am reminded, once again, that art is what links all of us as human beings.
Josh Copus inspecting the charcoal stoke, Lower Brush Creek, 2022