In the fall of 2019, I participated in my first pottery show with the West Michigan Potters Guild. There, the owner of a relatively new community studio approached me and asked if I’d like to teach pottery classes. At first, I was hesitant. I am not naturally outspoken or comfortable in front of groups. I minimized my skill level and what I might offer, even to students just starting out in clay.
Despite this nervousness, it felt like I couldn’t pass up an opportunity that would immerse me in a medium I love, allow me to gain more experience with studio operations, and connect me to others within a creative community. With the additional offer of a studio management position that would allow me to quit my job at the greenhouse, I jumped all the way in. While enormously challenging at times, I loved being the general manager of a bustling studio. I worked with a fabulous crew of people, and we saw the studio grow exponentially during that time. And it wasn’t long until I realized that while it put me on the very edge of my comfort zone, I absolutely loved to teach.
The opportunity to teach handbuilding and introductory wheel classes to hundreds of students over my time there brought so much rich exchange and shaped who I am as a teacher. I certainly learned from them as much as I could impart about working with clay. All that nervousness about teaching didn’t go away, but it evolved into a more nuanced exploration of that tension between confidence and humility that remains a part of everything I do. I can now start to recognize first-day jitters with new students as a signal that I’m doing something I love and that I really want to do well!
At a certain point, though, I could tell that I was stretched too thin. I was feeling diminished and depleted. I didn’t have the capacity to teach at the level my students deserved, as other workplace concerns took their toll. After months of therapy, I came to terms with needing to let go of my hopes for a healthier future there, and I resigned at the end of 2022.
Was I ready for self-employment? Not even close. I took several months to recharge while I tried to get a sense of what that would mean, and part of that was done by imagining how I would like to teach. I craved depth more than anything. I wanted to impart to students that an introductory clay class is both the tip of the iceberg and a place to build foundational values of process over product, continual practice, and long-haul patience over a lifetime of possible learning.
I had the privilege of teaching the pottery wheel one-on-one to a handful of friends over the course of that first year and the next, and then to a student who found my offerings online and stuck with me for about five months of weekly classes over the course of 2024. Most of these students were drawn in by the experience and possibilities of working with clay so much that they bought their own wheels!
As I continue to explore my own path as a ceramic artist, navigating the ins and outs of getting quality craftsmanship into the hands of people who will value it with their hard-earned cash, I hope to make teaching a larger portion of what I do. One welcome outcome would be that by sharing what I love with interested students, I’ll free up enough of the financial pressure currently placed on making pots, allowing me to approach my own work with the intention and commitment to practice I try to instill in my students. Opening the doors to this cozy basement studio has already brought in so much vitality, and now, with a fresh coat of floor paint, bigger work tables, and an outward creeping studio footprint, I can teach just a few more students at a time while preserving the attentiveness, flexibility, and individualization that make for a rich and dynamic learning environment.
If that sounds like something you’re hungry for, too, reach out to me–I’d love to talk clay with you! I’m sure we’ll discover together how much it has to teach us.
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