My first pottery teacher during my junior year in high school encouraged me. He put the very first piece I made out in the gallery for everyone to see and I was just blown away by that. And then when I sat down on the wheel – I just took to it.

Over the years my work evolved from my interests in cooking and gardening to become a farm to table pottery collection.

I grew up on a pig farm in NH and have always loved most things “Pig”. It’s only natural that I called my business Hog Wild Pottery. I now make functional art, such as unique berry bowls, garlic keepers, butter keepers, funky pitcher vases, and much more.

I like the way these things display in the pottery, whether it’s my vegetables, my berry bowls, my flowers, or my cooked dishes.

I really like the functionality of a piece. How it performs when used and how it stores between use are both important considerations.

And I love the way pottery cleans up after you use it in the oven. It’s so much better than pyrex. For example, I roast vegetables in one of my open faced casseroles. After it cools, I place it in the sink, come back later and wipe it out with a dishcloth. It comes clean, no scrubbing needed. Of course, it’s important to remember to start the cooking process with a cool oven. You can’t preheat.

Wheel throwing. I was challenged one time by another member at Potters Place to see how many pieces we could make in a week. That exercise got me to be a production potter. She and I would challenge each other to see if we could make 20 pieces in a week, and I could. Then 40 pieces in a week. One time I sat down to make plates and made 40 at a sitting in approximately 3 hours. I was throwing a plate every 5 minutes.

It has just grown. I’ve developed my pottery into nicer, unique forms that have good functionality.

As a production potter I focus on a few specific shapes. It gives my work consistency so when my customers purchase a pot from me, they know what to expect. For example, I sell over 100 berry bowls a year so I need to really sit down and just make them. I always weigh my clay so I’m starting with the same amount of clay. I’ll sit down and throw all one and a half pound berry bowls. Then 2 pound berry bowls. And I’ll go up in increments like that.

My berry bowls have two handles each. That’s why when I pull my handles, I lay them all flat and make them all the same.

Pottery has taught me to be more laid back. Even though I like to be so precise, I’m a lot more imprecise than I was a few years ago. I know that contradicts my earlier statement about consistency, but I’m more laid back in doing it now than I was 5 years ago.

Beauty. Functionality. Usage.

Pottery lessons my anxiety. I’ve always been very anxious about public speaking and teaching pottery helped me get over that. I’m not perfect and my pottery isn’t perfect. So I teach the value of going one step at a time. You have to be a beginner and you learn from there.

I like challenging my students to push their personal boundaries. For example I teach a Throwing Large and Tall class and another that focuses on my unique lid-making process.

I am very proud of a large bowl that’s at my sister’s house. It’s the largest bowl I’ve ever made – 21.5 inches across. When I threw it, it was so big that I couldn’t fit it into my space at the old studio. I had to lift it over the shelves to get it into my space to dry. And then it just fit into the kiln. It was 24 inches wide before it was fired and the kiln is 26. So I just barely fit posts around it.