Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Our State

I'm sure many of you have probably seen this, but I've not been out to a store in a while so I'm a bit slow getting to it. Our State is a great publication and usually has some interesting articles about North Carolina and the area. This month they have featured the art of NC although in my opinion there is not enough depth there and it seems like they just breezed through the topic. I think the best article in there is the feature on Starworks, written and photographed by Jerry Rowe and photos by Jerry Wolford, both friends that Gerry worked with when we lived in Greensboro and he worked at the News and Record. The article on Seagrove was really lacking in substance and I think missed a lot of what makes Seagrove special. No offense meant to the people that were featured. What they did feature was nice, they just missed soooo much.
I love this photo of Sid Luck. What a dear sweet man. He is the first person to show me what clay could do on a potter's wheel and I will never forget it. We were living in Albemarle, NC in Gerry's brother's house while looking for a place in Charlotte. I didn't have a job and was looking for things to keep me occupied. The parks and rec there had a one day workshop with Sid and I took Wesley. It was really for kids but I asked if I could join. He told some great stories to a group of about ten girls and then gave each one of us a turn on the one wheel they had set up. He basically held our hands and threw a pot, making us believe that by magic, we had thrown that bowl. I was hooked. I went back a few weeks later to pick up my bowl and was so disappointed with it. It had been glazed in an ugly teal blue matt glaze that ran a bit and was not attractive at all. (This should have told me something right then!). I kept it forever, but I can't find it, I was going to post it. Must have packed it up somewhere.
Anyway, right after that, I signed up for a class at Clayworks in Charlotte, that was 2003, and I have been trying to get a decent piece since. Here is the first bowl I threw at Clayworks. I think this is weathered bronze over randy's red, ran like a mother! Sad little thing but it's fun to see how far I've come.

3 comments:

Jen Mecca said...

Conundrum is such an awesome word. I love to use it. CUBE use to be my favorite word when I was little. So funny coming from a kids who couldn't read of write for awhile! Ahhhh dyslexsia..its great!
Thanks for the post. Jen

Linda Starr said...

What a great post Tracey, so nice to learn about your introduction to clay. I like the your first pot with the runny glaze. One of my first bowls I glazed by dipping with a very long dip in red iron oxide glaze and it turned out that pebbly metallic gray color - I think I threw it away - now I regret it.

cookingwithgas said...

There is so much going on here these days it would take a book to get it all in.
Thanks for your support as always of the working potters here in Seagrove. I thought the article of starworks was great as well.
M