Tina Ufford was still in high school when she discovered pottery. Though
she had several career options open to her, she knew this was for her.
"Now that I have a job and I live off [the money I make from] pottery,
it's so cool. I can wear whatever I want, I can be dirty. I'm 20 and I get
to play in dirt all day!"
Ufford, also known as the Dirt Queen, is a rookie in her field, but she
already gets a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment out of her job. She's employed
as a potter at a studio in Colorado Springs.
Even though she works hard for her money, Ufford still finds it weird that
people pay for her pieces.
"I made some teapots a few weeks ago. I painted some designs on them, some
sunbursts around the spouts. They looked pretty good, but they'd been selling
for $150 each. Personally, I find that scary. It's weird. I could never say,
'Yes, you are paying me $150 for this pot.' I'd probably be charging half
of that."
Perhaps she's being a tad modest. Nevertheless, Ufford enjoys having the
opportunity to brag to her dad -- a sculptor himself -- that someone actually
paid $150 for something she made. It's got to be a good feeling.
"Another big attraction for me is that my stuff is so personal. The things
I make, you'll never see again."
Ufford's not a big fan of mass-produced products. "I don't like anything
that's generic, all-purpose," she says. "It's really lame when you go to the
store and buy something, and then you see the same thing in someone else's
house."
This is why Ufford is so into the personal, hands-on aspect of pottery.
"That hands-on element also brings out the creativity in the customers when
they realize that they can come to me and ask for a certain size, shape or
style of a mug or a planter. A week later, they can come back and have it
exactly the way they wanted."
Stephen Jepson agrees with the rookie. Jepson, a potter for over 20 years,
comments on the creative, physical aspects of the job.
"I take mud and I turn it into something that is very beautiful," he says.
"I've produced so much pottery that there are many people out there who are,
every day of their lives, touching something that I made with my hands."
When he's making mugs, Jepson says, "I know that somebody is going to be
drinking their coffee out of this on a daily basis. They're going to fall
in love with this familiar object and it's going to become very important
to them. They're never going to know me, but I'm going to have an effect on
their lives. I'm going to make their lives a little richer."
In addition to this physical presence, potter Joan Bruneau points out that
there is a more abstract quality to pottery as it acquires history and meaning
for its owners.
"A couple came in last summer," says Bruneau. "They were on their honeymoon
and they bought a teapot and pitcher. They'll have that pottery for the rest
of their lives and then they'll pass it down to their children or their grandchildren,
and it'll remind them of their experience here."
Bruneau says that when she makes a piece, she is putting her own meaning
into it at that point. But the new owners add to that meaning as the piece
acquires a history in their lives.
"The piece will appeal to the customer. But when they buy it, they'll project
their own meaning onto it," she explains. "Then the thing lives
in their environment and they pass it down from generation to generation and
the object ends up having this whole history behind it.
"So it's really gratifying to be a part of that cycle, especially in this
day and age when people practically live on the Internet and there's hardly
any tactile experience in our lives."
It seems that being a potter is about being able to affect people's lives
with a work of art that is both functional and permanent -- something to be
appreciated these days when everything is so temporary, disposable or untouchable.
But what about the act of making pottery? What does it mean to create the
piece?
"It's a meditation, it's a dance," says Jepson. "In the last 30 years,
my pottery has been the most significant thing in my life."
That's saying a lot, considering the full life Jepson leads. He kayaks,
juggles, throws knives, makes jewelry, rides a unicycle, builds his own kayaks
and does a fair bit of welding. In addition, he teaches pottery and circus
skills, among other things. But first and foremost he's a potter, and there's
a sample of his work in the Smithsonian Institution to prove it. But a dance?
"My wife and I go dancing all the time. I danced twice a week when I was
a kid. I love it. Pottery is quite physical like that. You're touching the
clay and the clay is spinning. I move around quite a bit and there's this
balance and sensitivity.
"It's just this dance with the clay you do, this pushing, pulling, coaxing,
cajoling, nurturing and loving. That's what you have to do with the clay to
get it to do what you want."