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Saturday, November 06, 2010

Still holding onto a dream

After I graduated from high school, I had no idea what to do with my life. I had no specific career goal in mind but I loved doing art so I decided to take a few random classes at the local junior college for a year to test a few things out. I took 3D & 2D art, 2 photography classes and 2 pottery classes. Both photography and pottery became lifetime passions. Photography is something I still practice today - with my children. Pottery is something that requires equipment, a place to build pots and amazing sculptures and cover them with beautiful glazes, a place to get really really dirty, and a kiln to bake the pots in.

My passion for pottery awakened an ability to create things in three dimensions, I never knew I could sculpt before these classes. It took a very creative teacher to asked us to sculpt a life size bust of ourselves, showed me how to make a mask, showed me how to throw pots and then use them to create bigger sculptures.

My dad was a huge fan of everything I made. I don't remember him making over the things I did in high school, although I'm sure he did, but with my pottery he was so complimentary and proprietary over everything I made. His favorite was of an old man sculpted into a crescent moon shape.

I had an amazing year and the energy propelled me into the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. My parents were nervous about seeing me move three hours away but I was so motivated to make ART that there was no stopping me.

This beginning in pottery lead me to a degree in Industrial Design - which is a broad industry term for anything three dimensional and included special effects for movies, product design, more pottery, arts & crafts, special effects make-up and toy design. I specialized in toy design since it was the most "fun" out of the group and am still working as a toy designer today. But I miss pottery. I dream about having a small studio some day where I can make more beautiful things. Fortunately my husband shares my dream and has promised to build a kiln for me some day, when we get to our dream home!

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