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“I took a clay class once…”
“It was really hard.”
Sometimes the conversation ends there. Sometimes it turns into questions—or photos, followed by more questions. Why did it come out like this? Sometimes I can answer definitively. Sometimes, it’s just an educated guess.
Everyone should take a clay class at least once. It’s a way to quiet the endless chatter in your brain. But I’ll warn you—sometimes that chatter is replaced with something else entirely: clay obsession.
I always suspected I might be a potential victim. As a child, I received a battery-operated pottery wheel and attempted to throw a pot with the full five pounds of clay included. My ambition quickly outpaced the four D batteries powering my Tyco Potterycraft.
I was fully afflicted shortly after moving to Baltimore, Maryland 2000. One day, driving through the Mt. Washington area of Baltimore City with our real estate agent, we passed an old building with a large ceramic sculpture out front. “What is this place?” I asked. “I’m not sure,” she said, “some kind of art center.” I was intrigued, to say the least.
Later that afternoon, back at our apartment, I looked it up—and became more intrigued.
I signed up for a class.
Then another.
And then a work-study.
I was spending so much on clay and kiln fees that I needed to find a way
to support the habit.
One evening, the executive director came into class and asked if I was
looking for a job. Apparently, she had been “hearing things” about me.
At the time, I was the “trailing spouse,” newly relocated to Baltimore with my husband just months after we were married. Baltimore Clayworks—a vibrant community arts center—became my home for the next six years. I took classes, signed up for workshops, built friendships, and eventually began teaching. I learned more than I had since art school. It felt like going back—but this time, I was part of it in a completely different way, and it was life-changing.
Those years passed quickly. Before I knew it, we were moving back to Massachusetts—and once again, I was the “trailing spouse.” Time to find another job.
For the next sixteen years, my life moved away from clay. Not by choice—life simply unfolded. Work became engaging, but complicated, and as my career progressed, it left little room for anything else. At the same time, my parents grew older, and their health declined. Their needs came to occupy more emotional and physical space—until they were gone. Work continued to progress, and I loved what I was doing—but something was missing. I tried to make room for it, but it never quite fit.
And then, something shifted. The pull to make returns—not as work for others, as it had been for so long, but as something more personal. A need to create for myself, and to share that work without holding it back. And that is where we are now.
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