114 East 4th Street,
Lewes, DE 19958

watson.pottery@gmail.com

Artist Statement

I learned how to throw pots in the late 1970s at the Undertaking Artists Cooperative in Occoquan, VA. I became a member of the cooperative in the early 1980s and had a studio where I taught classes and made pots. I sold my work at the Cooperative gallery, at craft fairs, and through craft and museum shops on the east coast. I left working with clay to go back to school to work on an advanced degree. I started working with clay again in the mid 1990s.

I now have a studio in my home and sell my work at craft shows in Sussex County Delaware, the Rehoboth Art League, and the Stepping Stone, in Lewes Delaware, and Terasol Gallery and Café in Washington, DC.

The pots I make are functional, usually thrown on the wheel and sometimes altered, and are of stoneware or porcelain. Forming the pot is the part of the process that I most enjoy -- actually feeling the wet clay slide through my hands, the pot taking shape from the pressure and gestures of my hands. I tend to like simple glazes and fire pots in a gas-fired kiln to about 2400 degrees. Over the past several years, I’ve been firing pots in a salt kiln. Salt firing dates back to 15th-century Germany, when potters discovered that throwing quantities of common salt in the kiln when it reached high temperatures caused a chemical reaction with the clay, forming an attractive natural glaze.