Interview With A Potter

Today a reporter from the local free monthly newspaper, The Echo, came to call. I had him meet me in the studio where I was working on  a new series of Edgy Bowls. We talked while I worked, he taking notes sometimes, listening intently, and asking questions while his cell phone recorded the interview.


Typical of me, when someone shows interest, I told him everything. My whole life poured out. After all, I write 2 blogs, keep a daily journal, and tell all twice a month to my two co-counselors, so I am inclined to expose myself. I am quiet and withdrawn by nature, but to talk or write about myself is nevertheless, one of my means of expression.


He was very interested in my Parkinson's Disease, which I have not written about in this blog, and maybe it could have been avoided. However it is a factor in why I built a clay studio and why I do clay at all.







I told details of my life story that are sensitive, so he asked me what, if anything, I would like for him not to include in the article. I asked him to not mention just one life event.

After he left, I had my husband take some shots of me in the studio for the article, as we were asked to do. They are staged. I work on the other side of the table normally, but the garden background I thought nicer than my shelving with buckets, cans, and sponges. One has to be chosen to go with the text. Which shall it be? These are my picks. I'll let him choose and crop as well.

I'll post the article here when it's published. For now, here I am in my favorite setting: Raisin Studio.

And here it is:

http://mercerspace.com/2017/06/27/inside-potter-elisa-hirvonens-little-world/

Walking to the Studio

Now that it is May there are distractions on the way to the studio. There is a garden surrounding it that I planted and care for.

A bench I made out of a cast iron grate is along the path to the studio. It is in a sunny spot by the honeysuckle trellis. It calls me sometimes to quietly meditate or gaze.

Along the way I see sudden spurts of growth, struggling young plants pleading for attention, flowers about to bloom, and flowers fully formed.

They make me pause and attend to them. They are after all my artwork, in a way.

 I have drawn the composition and nature has painted it. That is how I feel a garden is created.

The sketching is ongoing - the rearrangement of plants, the new additions, lifting established plants to divide and propagate them, and planting the divisions elsewhere in the garden.

Thern the nurturing - the feeding, the watering, the weeding. It takes time and everyday, almost everyday, I do some caring for the garden.






























Even many of the stones that make the walls for the raised beds or stepping stones for the paths are my work. They are all in flux too, and can change from season to season.

A garden is an ongoing process. It is a place that centers me, replenishes me, though sometimes in spring or fall when there is so much to do, it exhausts me.

From the studio, when I finally get there, I have the view of my garden. I work with its peaceful and intimate beauty before my eyes. I know every plant, every stone, every tree in the garden. We are in harmony.

My Selling Out

Being a sell out means going the commercial route, making things for the marketplace - if you're a certain kind of artist, maybe like some of those I saw at the Whitney Museum Biennial recently. But I, with my clay, am happy to make pieces people will buy for themselves or someone else to use or to display. I want people to like my work and think it's beautiful. Beauty is not a requirement to be in the Whitney biennial.

In this post are some of my attempts at creating beauty and pleasing others.

Here is a  little bowl I made for a couple getting married. I call it a "sharing bowl"

"Edgy bowls" are another idea that I'm working on. I've made quite a few now and am selling them in a local shop, "The Farmhouse Store." 

The store put them in a prominent place, at least now that they are a new item there. Good luck to ye bowls. Go out and find good homes.