When you find a good teacher… Steven Hill Workshop 2024
A couple weeks ago I was fortunate to be able to take master-potter, Steven Hill’s, “Throwing Relaxed Gestural Forms” workshop at the Westminster, Colorado Recreation Center (they have a beautiful pottery facility, and the pottery staff made me feel so at home with their enthusiasm!). I had come upon Steven’s work in Ceramics Monthly magazine and online and was enamored with his forms. I was even thinking about traveling to one of his workshops, when suddenly this workshop was posted only 45 minutes from where I live!
All that I can say is that I found the right teacher for me! Steven was skilled, gracious and funny, and an attentive instructor who offered constructive advice and suggestions if you sought them.
In spending 4 days watching a master artist & craftsman at work on the wheel, I was almost surprised at how slowly and meticulously he worked—slowing the wheel way down to gently alter a curve to his sense of being “just right”, spending time looking, refining. I always thought that maybe I worked too slowly at my own wheel. I mean, if you read too much pottery advice online, especially from people telling you how to be a successful, money-making potter, it is all about learning a few forms and “whipping them out” as quickly as possible and posting them for sale with all the correct “tags” and accompanying music and…. It was so refreshing to hear Steven tell us that when he sits down at the wheel he always tries to make the form he is working on the very best one he has produced! I will never again let that buzzing fly of “hurry up” ping around my mind when I am at the wheel. I truly do want each piece I make to be better than the one before, to meet my high expectations a bit better than ever! If people want only to pay $10 for something, they are really better suited to shop a discount store for soulless factory products.
What a fun group with teacher, Steven Hill, far right! And this WAS the only 5-minutes of the entire workshop where I was not wearing clay (center front, blue speckled shirt)!
I have only taken a few workshops in my life. So I am no expert at the experience. But you know something good; you know when you have met a teacher who speaks to you and can help you grow.
And so, I have made a huge committment by signing up for Steven’s “Journey Workshop” at Scarab Gallery in Fresno, California beginning October 2025. It is a yearlong study with 3 weeklong visits/get-togethers and the rest of the time working in one’s own studio. It is an exploration and further development of one’s own voice in clay.
I could not be more thrilled to embark on this journey with such a good teacher and with so much inspiration for where my own work is going, and can go! Stay tuned!