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The Secret To Balancing Motherhood and Being a Fulltime Potter with Shawna Pincus
203 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of 'Shaping Your Pottery,' host Nic Torres interviews Shawna Pincus a potter who shares her journey from initially pursuing photography to falling in love with pottery. Shawna discusses how being a mother has influenced her growth as an artist and provides insights into balancing motherhood with her full-time pottery career. She also talks about her unique methods for combining wheel throwing and hand-building techniques, how she incorporates illustrations into her pottery, and the importance of experimenting and finding one's unique voice in the art world. Shawna offers practical advice for up-and-coming potters and emphasizes the value of jumping in and continually pushing the boundaries of one's craft. You can learn more about Shawna by checking out her instagram https://www.instagram.com/pinkkisspottery/
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00:00 Introduction and Quiz Announcement 00:24 Guest Introduction and Pottery Philosophy 00:50 Journey into Pottery 02:34 Balancing Motherhood and Artistry 06:37 Pottery Techniques and Inspirations 14:45 Business Side of Pottery 20:37 Discovering Your Unique Voice 25:06 Final Thoughts and Farewell
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Transcript
Introduction & Free Quiz Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, real quick, before we get started and get into the episode, if you want to figure out how close you are to discovering your own unique voice, I put together a free little quiz for you to see how close you are to finding your own unique voice. If you would like to take this quiz, go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash quiz, or you could just go to shapingyourpottery.com and it'll be right there. I'll see you guys in there.
Advice for Potters
00:00:24
Speaker
I think only take on what you can and it's okay if it doesn't happen. Shawna, welcome to Shaping Pottery and share with me what is something you believe everyone in the pottery world should be doing? Hmm, so everybody in the pottery world, I think everybody should be experimenting and trying new things and learning from each other. Absolutely agree, 100%.
Shawna's Pottery Journey
00:00:51
Speaker
So tell me the story how you got started making pottery.
00:00:54
Speaker
So I think I got started with pottery. i so I really started in high school. I took a class while I was just in high school, the local art college. And I always knew that I wanted to go to art school, so but I thought I wanted to be a photographer. So when I went into college, I went for photography and learned that I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Just didn't have as much tactile stuff for me but I had taken that pottery class in high school so I took pottery as an elective or ceramics class as an elective and I kind of fell in love with it there so I stopped my photography journey and started pottery instead. What were you feeling when you dropped pottery and you started focusing on ah you drop photography you start folks more on pottery?
00:01:49
Speaker
I think that I just really loved the kind of communal aspect of pottery. In the photo studio, everybody it was like everybody was kind of in their own like little dark space and just the way that the the communities worked. at at The pottery studio was so welcoming and I made some really good friends there. And I just, I don't know, I just loved it. I loved getting my hands in the clay and getting kind of messy. And I'm grateful for the photography background because I think it's definitely helped me out, you know, continuing through pottery.
00:02:28
Speaker
I absolutely love that. And we're going to talk a little bit more about your photography a little bit, just a little bit later.
Motherhood & Artistic Growth
00:02:34
Speaker
But for now, you contribute growth as an artist to being a mother. Can you tell me more about this? Yeah, so I think that we grow as artists and people through our life experiences. And you know a big one for me, which I know is the same for a lot of of people with children, is having having a kid and you know watching them grow up and become their own human who you weren't maybe expecting. And, you know, you kind of get to relive childhood through their eyes and you see things in a different perspective. So, you know, I think that it's just a big part of me as a person. So that translates to me as an artist. Tell me more about that. How does it translate to you as an artist? So, and you know, a lot of my work
00:03:27
Speaker
i it I mean, i I enjoy doing illustrations and drawing on my pots. So, you know, a lot of the things that I make, even the forms that I make and the images that I put on there come from my life experiences a lot of times with my daughter, you know. So for instance, I make these little mini mixers, I call them, they're like, it's like a little mug with a spout, you know, for mixing eggs and stuff. And it's it's not, you know, unique that lots of people do that. But I think you know my daughter went through a phase where she wanted to make scrambled eggs for breakfast every day. And I was always reaching for a mug or something to mix it up. And that was just new for a couple of eggs. And, you know, it was like, man, it would be a lot easier if this had a spout on it. And I could make that with one of my forms. And let me just think about the things that we're using while we're making those eggs and, you know, how we're handling them and how can I incorporate that into the design
00:04:22
Speaker
both in how the form is and how the illustration is. So then that just kind of evolves you know into that final piece. so you know So I take a lot of inspiration just from our daily rituals and the things that we we do around the house or experiences that we have. absolutely love that. Shaping agent, you can take experiences from your everyday life and you can apply it to your pottery and it'll actually impact the way you make your pottery that much more. I love that. So how do you balance being a mother and also being a full-time artist?
00:05:02
Speaker
It's always an interesting balance. i I think the best thing for me has been to bring my daughter down into the studio with me when I can. Since she was little, I've kind of been pulling her down here and giving her a little bit of clay to play with. Now that she's older, she helps me take pictures of my work. She helps sand pots. she'll She knows how to run a credit card machine because you know we take her to the shows and she's she's pretty good at it. So, you know, I think that just being able to kind of cross those different roles in life has been really useful. What advice would you give to other parents out there that also want to be making pottery, maybe doing it full time as well?
00:05:52
Speaker
I'd say give yourself grace. It's not easy. The kids, you know, the kids don't always cooperate and you don't always have the time. So, you know, I think only take on what you can and it's okay. If it doesn't happen, you know, try to make time for it. I would always sneak in when she was little, I would sneak in time when she was napping or when, after she went to bed or, you know, make a date to go with a grandparent or something and then I'd get some studio time in. But I just knew at that time that that wasn't gonna be, it wasn't gonna be as full time as I wanted it to be. That was some excellent advice but they're absolutely love it. So let's talk about your pottery.
Evolution of Pottery Style
00:06:40
Speaker
Can you tell me the story how you started making the pottery that you make today?
00:06:44
Speaker
Okay. So I, I feel like it's evolved a lot throughout the years. It's kind of stayed where it is now for a little while, but I've always been interested in putting images. into pottery or like personality into pots. And I originally started with rubber stamps and I was using rubber stamps and underglaze that I loaded into a blank stamp pad and would just stamp images all over the pots and do some painting and stuff. And I started to feel like the images weren't my own because I could only use the ones that I was
00:07:25
Speaker
I could perch and i had a pretty I still have a pretty good collection of really random kind of vintage images on stamps, but i I wanted to be able to put my own drawings on the pots. So I kind of figured out this method of using the silk screens and the jelly plate to silk screen the image that I drew Transfer it in onto the pottery and then be able to kind of paint into it. So, and then, you know, as far as the forms go I've I love both throwing and hand building. So my current
00:08:03
Speaker
way of working is kind of a combination of both. So I cut out slabs and I put them on the wheel and I shape them over a mold with throwing methods. And then I take those and I slab build on top of it. And that's how I kind of form the pots. So I think, you know, it's a lot of it is just all the things that I really want to do that I smushed into one pot. Why do you do both or combine both wheel throwing and handling? So I really like them both. I love the wheel, but I'm not very good at throwing the same thing over and over again. I was never trained as a production potter and it's just not, I'm not good at it. It drives me crazy. I get very annoyed when there's just little differences.
00:08:52
Speaker
So I think that by incorporating the hand build aspect, I'm able to kind of make a pattern that I can follow, which helps my work be the same. So all of the mugs are the same size, all of the bowls are the same size. and I can kind of like figure out the form that way. And the hand building with the slabs, it kind of allows, like it gives me permission to be a little bit looser and not as uptight about everything being perfectly round and and symmetrical and exactly the same.
00:09:28
Speaker
I absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, you don't have to stick to just one technique. You can literally do all kinds of techniques. You can combine them. You can do whatever. It doesn't matter as long as you are enjoying the process and it's soothing your soul. I absolutely love that. Now, why do you like adding illustrations to your pottery? So I think I love when people have a connection to the pots and that I have found to be a huge connection for people. There are just these small things.
00:10:01
Speaker
in life that we all kind of have stories around. And i I love being at a show and hearing somebody come up and say, oh, that's my favorite flower. I remember my grandma used to grow these in the garden. And you know i I have people are so who say, like might I just had a client who wanted a little mini strawberry mug because she and her grandmother went strawberry picking every year. And her grandmother only drinks a little bit of coffee. So she was you know kind of like specific about what she wanted. but I just love the connection that people have with that. So I just, I don't know, I enjoy, I enjoy drawing. I enjoy kind of looking at all the smaller things that are around and making them a part of our daily rituals and of, um you know, it kind of heightens it to an importance. Maybe it didn't have otherwise. How can somebody start adding a connection to their pottery for somebody else?
00:10:59
Speaker
So I think that you just have to do it for yourself first. So when when people come up with those connections, it's not like I've, I knew that was going to happen. It's really, it's usually that it's, it's something that's important to me and it's a connection that I have with the object and then other people have shared connections. So I think that it's not necessarily about trying to figure out what other people are interested in on what they, they would like or what you think might sell. It's more about finding what.
00:11:35
Speaker
makes you happy and what your personal connection is and got going from there. and And that's sort of like, it's a little bit more genuine, I think, and people will have those connections just because. Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation. The most important thing is to make free self first. And people will make connections themselves because there are a bunch of different people in this world and we all have interests that align somewhat another in groups. So can you walk me through the steps you take when you are adding illustrations to your pottery?
00:12:12
Speaker
Sure so usually my ideas will come sort of randomly maybe like if i'm on a walk or just doing something around the House or like there's. You know, something that we just do all the time and i'll think that you know that's something that I kind of want to explore a little bit more, so I use I used to use a sketchbook now i'm using a an iPad I a year or so ago I got myself an iPad. and I've been doing the drawings digitally, which just sort of saves me the step of scanning in drawings, and I love it. but So I i keep ah a digital sketchbook, and I will draw usually at night while we're watching TV. I'll sit with my my iPad and I sketch. And then some of sometimes those sketches make it onto a pot, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they just live on the iPad for a while. um So once I have the drawing done, I usually lay it out.
00:13:05
Speaker
I try to make all of my pieces so that my images fit within um like a half page of printer paper. So I don't know what would that would be like 11 and a half by four or something. So that, and like that kind of relates to all of the pots that I make too. So everything is pre-measured. So I lay out the images on that strip. of computer, really. And then I printed out, I burn a silk screen. So I use these like fabric screens. but They kind of are like paper screens that are coated with photo emulsion. So I burn a screen and then I use underglaze that I've thickened to be an inconsistency. I silk screen on top of the gelatin plate, and then I roll the pottery.
00:14:00
Speaker
over the print so that it transfers over. And then I use water down under glazes as similar to watercolor to paint the images. Why, where can people get the silk screening you're talking about? So the ones that I'm using currently are from small dog prints. Um, and she's just like a local small business. Then she, she sells really nice ones. They're the orange ones that I've been using. And then there's, you know, there's a couple other companies that make them. I think easy screen print makes them. Uh, I believe that Speedball makes them. I it's possible. I think Mako makes some, but I'm not sure if they're the kind that you can burn or not, or if they're already have images on them.
00:14:43
Speaker
but it's it's not too hard to find. Love it. So let's talk about the business side of pottery.
Transition to Full-Time Pottery
00:14:48
Speaker
Can you tell me about the moment when you decided to become a full-time potter? Well, I decided to become a full-time potter kind of a while ago. I used to be ah an art teacher. I've been, I've been doing this for a long time. So I kind of knew coming out of college that I wanted to be a potter full-time, but I didn't have, it you know, yous there's no health insurance. It's not, not a lot of money to make pots right out the bat. And I didn't have a studio. So I went into teaching and I taught elementary school art for a little while. And then I taught college. I taught, hang on, let me get my brain to wake up. I taught art education for Towson University for probably about 12 years. And um during that whole time, I really wanted to
00:15:36
Speaker
be doing pottery. So I kind of did it on the side and worked up to having my own studio and being able to do it more and more and more and backing off on work more and more. And then, you know, at a certain point, my daughter's school schedule changed and I wasn't able to teach at the university anymore because it just, the timing just didn't work out. And I took that as my opportunity to not try to get another part-time job and just to focus on ceramics, which I've been doing for like maybe, maybe a couple of years now, a few years. So.
00:16:23
Speaker
What were you feeling? What were you feeling when you became a full-time partner? I'm nervous, but excited. I mean, it's, it's a little bit scary to leave behind the stability. Although at the that time I, I wasn't making a ton of money as an adjunct teacher. But, you know, I was excited. I felt like it was something I could do. I felt pretty confident that, you know, I'd had and at this point, I'd had enough experience doing shows and selling online that it seemed like, okay, if I had the time to devote to this, I think I can do it. So here we are. Absolutely love that. love that. So now what is something you wish you knew before you became a full-time potter? That's a hard one.
00:17:15
Speaker
I think I would have gone back and told myself to buy a slab roller. I think just having good tools makes being a full-time potter so much easier. i don't i It's hard to say because I think that like it's being a full-time potter, is I'm not even positive that it's it's working still. I don't know if it's something that's going to keep going for forever or at some point I'll have to get another job or whatever. but i don't I don't know if, I don't think I would want to know anything more than that because I might not do it. Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, while you don't need a lot of tools to become a full-time potter, the better tools you have, the easier it becomes to make pottery and pursue being a full-time potter. I absolutely love that. Now, right now, what works for you to be able to sell your own potter?
00:18:05
Speaker
So right now, I think it's a combination of being on online and also being in-person shows. So I mean, like with the pandemic, everything kind of ah all the on in-person shows sort of petered out a little bit. Like they they all had to take a break and it took a little while for them to get back into the swing of things. But the benefit, I guess, was that the online sales sort of went up. So now it's just sort of a balance of online selling and in-person shows, which is a balancing act because it can only make so many pots. So it's it's like looking ahead and trying to figure out what I have coming up. I still teach, so I do still teach at ah the Baltimore Clay Works. I teach a Sunday intermediate wheel class and occasionally I teach workshops like both virtual and in-person. So
00:18:58
Speaker
it's It's looking ahead at a schedule and figuring out what's coming up. what's What do I have to make in the studio? What do I have to do to prepare for a workshop? And what like what am I applying for? So it's just it's a lot of pre-planning. I absolutely love that. So now, what advice would you give to someone that's looking to have some success being a full-time potter or even just selling their own pottery as well?
Selling Pottery & Finding Your Path
00:19:25
Speaker
So I think as far as selling your own pottery, I think you should just do it. Just go for it. I think especially you know when I have students at ClayWorks who are interested in and starting out, there's like this whole nervousness of, I feel like I have to have and enough to put it out there. And I don't know that you do with as far as like online stuff goes. I think that you know if you just kind of just jump in and give it a try and see how it goes, and I think you gain confidence
00:19:55
Speaker
that way. Same thing with shows, you know, just make enough that you can have something on your table and try. Just try a little show somewhere. It's nothing real expensive. don't You don't have to jump into the deep end. It's just give it a try because sometimes people try that and they're like, this is not for me. I don't want to do this. And it's like, you should know that before you spend so much energy and time into, you know, devoting yourself to being full time. So so I'd say just jump in. I absolutely love that advice shaping nation. It's going to be a little bit difficult for you at first to jump in, but the moment you jump in, everything becomes that much easier and you gain more confidence the more you do it. I absolutely love that. So let's talk about discovering your voice. Can you tell me about the moment when you knew you were heading in the right direction with your partner? I don't know that there was necessarily a moment. I think that
00:20:48
Speaker
When I started getting pots back out of the kiln that were, I was like, I'm happy with these. This is what I wanted it to look like. And I think some of the the surprise came out of it. like I wasn't surprised when I opened the account anymore. I was starting to look at things and saying, nope, that's that's in my head what I wanted it to look like. I feel like maybe that was a good sign that it was ah I was going in the right direction. Getting feedback from people that it was unique or different or they've not seen
00:21:24
Speaker
something like that before was, you know, has been pretty cool. So I think, you know, feeling like my work doesn't look like other people's work is is kind of fun. What would you say was your biggest obstacle when it came to finding your own voice? I think trying to not replicate the artist that I really loved their work. You know, I think that and I think that it's okay when you're first starting to to see people who are making pots and say like, I wanted to make that pot and kind of trying to figure out what they're doing and how they're doing it. And then, but then I think, you know, taking that and making it into your own is also really important. That's kind of how you're going to find your voice. So I think that, you know, one of the biggest obstacles is just learning how to say, okay, I love that person's work and I love these elements about it.
00:22:19
Speaker
But and like maybe those are some elements that I want to incorporate, but I need to be able to make it my own and and kind of going from there. How do you think someone can make pottery their own, even if they're modeling other potters? So I think that like the modeling part is the learning part. So you have to, you know, if you're trying to figure out a new technique or you're trying to figure out, you know, how to do a handle or or a certain process, then it's, you know, I always give my students permission to to do what I do.
00:22:53
Speaker
So the first time out, like try to copy me and see if you can do it, but then kind of to take that apart and figure out, well, what did I do to get there and what parts work for me and what parts don't work for me? And how can I how can i tweak this a little bit or change it a little bit or do it in my own style or my own voice? And sometimes it takes a while and sometimes it takes doing it over and over and over again until you it eventually evolves into something new. absolutely love that shaping action. It's okay to copy other or model other potters, but don't stay there. Make tiny little changes here and there until you've found something that truly resonates with you. Absolutely love that. Now, what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own unique voice with their pottery?
00:23:41
Speaker
I think if you're trying to discover your own voice, I think that by keeping a notebook of things that you love going outside of ceramics and maybe looking at forms, whether they're like industrial forms or organic forms, or whatever, looking at colors, just I tend to keep a huge Pinterest collection of all of those things. I have them separated into categories. So it's like things, you know, different, just different forms, different color schemes, different handles, like all of the things just start to, you know, kind of form a collection. And
00:24:28
Speaker
And think about, you know, and like try them out, you know, try out different techniques and different things. And when you find something that really resonates with you, then keep going with it. and see where it takes you. um you know I think that it's it's it's hard. it's It's not an easy thing to find your own voice and and figure it out. But I think the more you try to do different things and the the more information you're giving yourself and opportunities you're giving yourself, the easier it will come. Absolutely, Grease. That was some excellent advice, but they're absolutely loved that. Shauna,
00:25:06
Speaker
It's been great chatting today. And as we're coming to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer with my listeners today? I think just get out there and experiment, you know, take, take classes and learn new things and always be pushing the boundaries. See, that's how you make new work. Some excellent parting words to buy. Shawna, it's been great chatting today. Where can my listeners go and learn more about you? So you can go to my website, which is www.pincuspottery.com. ah You can find me on Instagram or all the things I am at Pincus Pottery.
00:25:39
Speaker
Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. If you want to discover how close you are to actually discovering your own unique voice with your pottery, I put together a free four question quiz. It's very short. It takes 30 seconds for you to take. If you will want to know how close you are to finding your own unique voice, go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash quiz, or you could simply go to shapingyourpottery.com and it'll be right there at the top. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I'll see you guys next time.