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#363 Art ADHD: A Potter's Tale with Meredith Skyer
57 Plays2 years ago
This episode features a deep dive into the life and creative process of Meredith Skyer, a potter who finds inspiration in exploring various art mediums and incorporates them into her pottery. Meredith discusses her lifelong fascination with creatures not of this world and how it influences her work, leading her to create pottery that blends functionality with imaginative, monstrous designs. She emphasizes the importance of connectivity with other artists through the internet for inspiration and support. Meredith's journey from initially engaging with clay as a child, majoring in English, to rediscovering her passion for pottery in college and eventually teaching it, showcases her commitment to the craft. She shares insights into her unique approach of incorporating multiple art forms into pottery, elaborates on the significance of keeping art playful and joyful, and highlights the importance of continuous learning. Meredith also shares how her son inspires her to appreciate the beauty in the mundane and the importance of staying present. The episode concludes with advice for artists on finding their unique voice and embracing the humbling nature of pottery. You can learn more about Meredtith By checking out her Instagram
Get your 53 themes by clicking this link shapingyourpottery.com/53themes
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Transcript
Meredith's Artistic Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
I think I kind of have art ADHD, but I just can't seem to stick with one thing forever. I've been playing with other art mediums my whole life and
00:00:19
Speaker
I always come back to clay every single time. Meredith has a great fascination with creatures not of this world, and she uses this fascination and applies it to her own pottery. I've always been fascinated by monsters and robots and creatures that are not of this world. Meredith uses a five-minute simple exercise that helps grow her pottery skills to new levels.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's not something that people make a point of doing every single day, but that's a big loss. And there's so much more in this episode. I hope you guys enjoy it and I'll see you guys in there.
00:01:05
Speaker
So for me, the most helpful thing has been connecting with other potters and ceramic artists. It's really amazing that we live in the time that we do that we have the internet and we can connect with people all over the world. I'm in like 50 different book groups for ceramics and pottery, and I love that I can tap into that. Anytime I need, I can ask questions, I can get help.
00:01:28
Speaker
I can inspire other people, they can inspire me. I think that that's amazing and that's been so helpful for me because I live in the middle of nowhere. I don't have like a local pottery community. So it's really nice to have that online ceramic world. Absolutely. And I love that. Shaping Nation, the more you get around other artists, other potters, the better your pottery would be, even if it's only online through Facebook groups. I love that.
The Allure of Clay
00:01:55
Speaker
Tell me the story, how you got started making pottery.
00:01:58
Speaker
I started with clay when I was a little kid. I started with polymer clay and modeling clay, obsessed with it, had little sculptures all over my room all the time. And then I kind of lost track of clay. I didn't really know anything about pottery except that it was really overwhelming and looked really challenging.
00:02:19
Speaker
So I didn't do anything with that interest officially until I got to college. I went to college for English. I was an English major specializing in creative writing. And I took a ceramics class as just a, why not? I'm going to take ceramics one and see what it's like. And that was it. That was it for me. I got into that class and I found myself in that studio more than any place on campus. I was.
00:02:47
Speaker
skipping my other classes to spend time in the studio. I was failing my other classes because I wasn't doing the work because I was in the studio. And I took every ceramics class they had. I did like an independent study also on top of that with my teacher. And I just fell completely in love with it. I went above and beyond on every project. I took Clay home and worked at home in my dorm, much to the annoyance of my roommates. There was Clay everywhere.
00:03:15
Speaker
So that was, that was how I got started. And then from there, I jumped right in as soon as I graduated. Well, before I even graduated, I added on a double major of art because I knew this was going to stick. So I graduated. I bought everything I needed for a home studio, got really into that, started a ceramics business.
00:03:35
Speaker
And then I got my master's in art education and taught a lot of ceramics in public schools. I worked in schools for 13 years. And just, it's always been a huge part of my life ever since college. It's been 17 years now since my first class and I still love it as much as I did back then. Absolutely love it.
Creativity Across Mediums
00:03:57
Speaker
So you have spent pretty much your whole life looking for that one art medium. Can you tell me more about this?
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think I kind of have art ADHD, but I just can't seem to stick with one thing forever. I jump between a lot of things pretty much every day. I do watercolor painting, illustration, wool art, like needle felting and sewing and things like that. I just, I love
00:04:28
Speaker
everything. I love all art things and I think that's why I became an art teacher was because you can do anything that you want with the kids and they love it all and you should. But clay has always come back to me. It's the one medium that doesn't seem to have any limits. You can make anything you want, whatever you can dream, you can make and I love that about it. I love that it's free.
00:04:52
Speaker
And I think I want that for myself. I want that freedom to explore all different materials. And I love that Clay gives me that option. I love that. How would you say exploring other art mediums has helped you with your own pottery? It's kind of interesting. I've been playing with other art mediums my whole life.
00:05:15
Speaker
I always come back to clay every single time. And even when I try to do something totally different, it comes back to clay. Like a year ago, I started a project where I was going to draw a monster every day. Every single day for a whole year, I was going to draw a monster. And I do it on these little pieces of paper. They're little like two by two pieces of paper. And I was going to do a new one every day.
00:05:40
Speaker
So I started that project and I made like 50 of them and I was like I want to make these out of clay. Even that project that started off as illustration came back to clay and now I'm making them out of clay and they're awesome. I'll have to send you some pictures because I don't have them on me at the moment but they're so fun and it's so interesting to see how it always comes full circle for me back to clay because clay is just it's it's my favorite. Same with watercolor. I love watercolor painting and now I'm playing with
00:06:09
Speaker
How can I put watercolor painting on a mug? That's not easy to do with glaze because glaze is different than watercolor paint. But I'm trying to play with that and see how I can get that look on a mug. Same with wool. I want to, I don't know how, but I want to use wool and ceramics in the same piece. Oh, I'm going to find a way to do it. It's just the art ADHD makes me a little wacky and I can't seem to stay in one lane, but that lane always comes back to ceramics.
00:06:37
Speaker
I love that. Shaping Nation, if you are looking for new ideas with your pottery, sometimes the best solution is to start doing another art medium. That way you can get new perspectives on things. Let's talk about your pottery. Can you tell me the story how you started combining sculpture and functional pieces together? Yeah, I've always done that. I don't know any other way. When I was in ceramics class in college,
00:07:05
Speaker
We were asked to do really simple things. One of our first projects was make five pinch pots. And I couldn't do it. I was like, this is so boring. I can't make five pinch pots and have that be it. So I turned all five of my pinch pots into monsters. So all of mine were monsters. And my art teacher was like, this is crazy. Why'd you do this? We only had to make pinch pots. I just can't. I think.
00:07:28
Speaker
I just can't stick with basic forms. I think that they are beautiful and when you can master them, they're awesome. But for me, it's not enough. So I took the idea of a basic pot and turned it into a crazy creature just because of my own sort of
00:07:48
Speaker
wacky ADHD brain where I have to do something different and interesting to me. He had another project where we had to make five thrown pots on the wheel and I did that and then I turned all those pots into fantastical creatures. So like one is a gnome with his mouth wide open and the open mouth is the bull and one's a dragon and his back is the bull.
00:08:11
Speaker
You know, I just can't stick with just basic, just a pot, but I also don't love just a sculpture either because I want my art to do something. I don't want it to just sit on a shelf and look pretty. I want it to function.
00:08:28
Speaker
So for me, combining the two was pretty essential to have it be a piece of art that you can use every single day. So a mug that's an art piece that brings you your coffee every day or a planter that's an art piece that holds your plant and keeps it safe. So that was it for me. I just can't have just one or the other. It needs to be both in everything that I do.
00:08:52
Speaker
Absolutely loved and I definitely agree with like adding some more spice to the pots. I love that. So you have mentioned Monsters and fantasy creatures a couple times. Tell me more about your inspiration for these
00:09:05
Speaker
I wish I knew where it came from, but to be honest, I don't. I've always been fascinated by monsters and robots and creatures that are not of this world. I think it's because there's no limits to it. You can be as creative as possible because there's no real rules when it comes to monsters and robots and other things. You can make it however you want. It can have seven heads. It can have four eyes.
00:09:35
Speaker
wings and it's still a monster, you know? So I've always been really drawn to that upper level creativity that you...
00:09:45
Speaker
You don't find everywhere, you know, you can be very creative with making, making a bowl or making a pitcher. But a lot of the creativity comes from the glazing and the shaping and the carving and any sort of additions that you put on it. But when it comes to a sculpture, there's really no, no end to that creativity. I really love that.
00:10:09
Speaker
absolutely loved and I definitely agree. So you are inspired by your son. Tell me more about this and how this impacts the way you make your own pottery.
Sources of Inspiration
00:10:19
Speaker
Oh, he's so fun. My son is almost two and he's the most fun person I know. He's the most creative person I know. The way that little kids see the world is just so
00:10:31
Speaker
Interesting, like everything is magical to him. Everything is wonderful. Something is as mundane as a rock can interest him for five whole minutes and he can ask a million questions about a rock. And to me, like that's, that's wild. Like as we grow up and we age, we lose that, that sense of wonder about the world. We don't, we don't care about mundane things. We care about interesting things and entertaining ourselves. And for him, everything's entertaining. We go outside and he
00:11:01
Speaker
he wants to just play in the yard and look at sticks for, for 25 minutes. And I think that's so cool. And he has helped me to slow down and see the world in the same way, to really slow down on my art and see each piece as being really important. And it's not like, this is a thing I have to get done so that I can sell it so I can make money to pay my bills as, as much as this is a thing that's beautiful and interesting and fascinating and
00:11:29
Speaker
makes me smile. And that, that's really a big inspiration for me. And also his, this is one I've learned from him recently. He doesn't dwell on mistakes ever. He makes a mistake and he just moves forward. He falls down and he cries for a minute and then he gets up and he's doing something different. And I make a mistake and I dwell on it for like a year. Like I don't, I don't know how kids do it. They're, they're just so
00:11:59
Speaker
living in the now. And I think that's so cool and something I really draw inspiration from to just stay present, move past mistakes quickly, focus on what's fun right now, what's interesting right now, and finding interest in the mundane. It's really fascinating. I love that. So now you mentioned that your son has taught you to slow down and be in the moment. What are some things you're doing to help you practice that?
00:12:27
Speaker
It's really, really hard to do that as an adult. I have been meditating a lot recently and I didn't used to do that because I thought I was too busy to meditate, which I'm sure everybody feels that way, but meditation has helped me a lot. Just, just sitting and breathing and being and not doing, doing, doing all the time helps me a lot when I'm in my
00:12:53
Speaker
my studio and working now, I'm focusing on not having on a million things around me, not having on a TV show, not having on music, just focusing on the art and having that be interesting enough to me. That's enough fascination for me and not having to be distracted by other things. It's really interesting to live in that space.
00:13:16
Speaker
I absolutely love that. That was an excellent piece of advice as well. So something I found interesting from your website is you said you make time to draw paint or play with clay daily. Can you tell me more about this? Yeah. Art is one of those things that artists, especially if you have a job that's not art related, it tends to be the last thing on your to-do list. Or if you don't have a to-do list, it's the last thing on your priority.
00:13:46
Speaker
It's not something that people make a point of doing every single day, but that's a big loss, I think. For me, I have to do it every day. I have to take that time for myself so that I can feel good. I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I also work pretty close to full time online on my business and on a part-time job that I work.
00:14:10
Speaker
And between those two things, there's practically no time. But I still make sure I have five to 10 minutes a day to do something. And that's what that drawing a monster every day project has really helped me to do. Drawing one monster a day on a two by two piece of paper gives me the opportunity to make art every day, even if it's five minutes of art. And it's a habit for me now. I do that as part of my day.
00:14:39
Speaker
And if you don't make time for it, it's just not going to happen. The weeks and the months are going to go by, the years are going to go by, and you're going to be like, oh, I used to do art. And now I don't because life gets in the way and it gets too busy. But if that's an important thing for you, you have to make time to play and to explore and to have fun with something that's really interesting to you.
00:15:00
Speaker
absolutely agree. I love that. Shaping Nation, sometimes the best solution is just to take five minutes every day and draw something, make something out of clay, do whatever. Just take five minutes so you can keep exploring and expanding everything in art. I love that.
Merging Sculpture with Pottery
00:15:15
Speaker
Can you briefly walk me through how you create your sculptures onto your functional pots?
00:15:21
Speaker
Yeah, I do a combination of coil building and throwing on the wheel for the initial piece. I do a sketch first of what I want the piece to look like, and then most of the time I throw it on the wheel just because that's the fastest and the easiest way to get the form made quickly.
00:15:39
Speaker
I'll throw it on the wheel, let it dry a little bit, not to leather hard, cause that's way too dry. Just dry enough that I can hold it and work with that. And then I will add on legs and arms. If I'm doing like really big chunky legs on a monster or something, I will make the legs with coils and make them hollow. My, the newest pieces I'm working on are chickens that are sitting down and their legs are sticking out. So they're, their legs don't have to hold them up.
00:16:08
Speaker
So those are just added on slip and score. And then I use like ball tools to carve out eye sockets, add in big balls for the eyes and facial features. And then once the piece is dry enough, I carve into it and add texture and let it dry. And then I actually single fire my pieces. So all of them are only fired one time.
00:16:33
Speaker
So I let them dry completely and then I glaze them and then I fire them once super, super slowly in my tiny little baby kiln. And that's it. That's the only firing that I do. I don't do bisque firing. I find that to be more of a pain than a help. So that's pretty much my process. How long have you been doing single firing for? About eight years. How did you, how did you first learn about it?
00:17:01
Speaker
I didn't really learn about it. I just decided to try it and see if it would work and it did. And then I just kept doing it. I think it started out of a place of impatience. I didn't want to wait.
00:17:14
Speaker
wait for a bisque firing before I started glazing. And also I really hate trying to glaze something and you get the glaze in the wrong place and you can't get it off completely. And then you clean it as best you can on the bisque and then you glaze over it and you just hope that it won't show, but it always does.
00:17:32
Speaker
I hate that. And when you do single firing, you can mess up and get the glaze in weird places and then carve it off with a sharp tool and it's completely gone. So I really like that for really detailed sculptural pieces. It's really, really nice to do that. So I didn't learn how to do it at first. I learned what it was called later, but I just started doing it, seeing if I could, if I could glaze greenware and fire it and you can.
00:17:59
Speaker
I love that. I definitely agree on the impatient part of just wanting to get right into it because I also do single firing sometimes and I felt the exact same thing. 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 poverty?
00:18:18
Speaker
Voice is such a funny word because I still sometimes feel like I haven't found it, but I guess I have because I've been making the same sorts of pieces for so long. But I struggled with voice a lot because the things I wanted to do when I was a beginner artist, I was talked out of, I was talked down about, criticized for. I always wanted to make
00:18:45
Speaker
fun pottery. I wanted to make fun ceramic pieces that are whimsical and funny, humorous, not serious whatsoever. They're just there to inspire joy. And it was the same with all of my art. I took a college class in sculpture and my sculpture teacher was kind of an asshole and really dug into me because I made a six foot tall robot out of wood.
00:19:13
Speaker
And he was like, well, what does it mean? And we had to do a critique in front of the whole class. And he drilled into me, what does it mean? What is the purpose of this piece? And I was like, it's just for fun. It's a cool robot. I made it because it's cool. And he was like, no, that can't be the reason.
00:19:29
Speaker
I was like, yeah, sure I can't. Like, why, why can't art just be made because it's fun for the artist and because it looks cool? He was like, it has to have a deeper meaning. So I made up a meaning on the spot. I, I talked some bullshit about how.
00:19:45
Speaker
TV rots your brain and turns you into a robot. And that's why I made the piece because the piece had a big TV for its head, like an old school television. And he loved it. He ate it up. He's like, well, that's a good meaning. I was like, well, it's bullshit, but okay. So I was criticized a lot in my early formative years for only wanting to make art because it's fun and whimsical and funny and
00:20:11
Speaker
I'm glad that I didn't give that up because one teacher's opinion can't form everything for an artist. I still make pieces for the exact same reason. I still make things because they make me smile and I hope they'll make other people smile. And that's literally all I want to do. I'm not a serious person. I don't want to change the world with my art. I just want to make some people smile.
00:20:34
Speaker
I absolutely love that and I definitely agree. Shaping Nation, your pottery doesn't have to have a meaning behind it. If you want to make it for fun, go make it for fun because that's what you enjoy. I love that. So now, what are some new opportunities that started coming your way once you started establishing your voice more?
Embracing Unique Artistic Voice
00:20:55
Speaker
Some new opportunities have come to me and some opportunities I have
00:21:01
Speaker
finally felt confident to pursue. Once you find your own voice and you're more comfortable in the things that you make and confident in the things that you make, you can feel more confident applying to gallery shows, applying to markets, putting your stuff out there on Instagram, which can be really scary because the world is full of critics and
00:21:23
Speaker
Even something as silly as monster pottery, people are going to have an opinion about, but having the confidence in myself has, has led me to pursue those opportunities. And like just, just next month I'm planning on applying to a Charlie Cummings show.
00:21:41
Speaker
I've been wanting to do this for five years and I've always said, I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. I can't do it. And finally I was like, who says, who says I can't? Of course I can. If they say no, that's okay. I can apply again to another show. I can look at different galleries. So I think a lot of being comfortable in my own style and voice has, has led me to pursue opportunities, but also
00:22:05
Speaker
Finding friendships with other potters and ceramic artists has helped too. Finding your own voice helps you connect with other people who make things that are similar to you and connecting with them opens you up to new opportunities because they're posting about the galleries they're taking part in and they're connecting you via their network. So much of the world is networking and who you know. And I've really enjoyed that aspect too. Like I said, the Facebook groups, the Instagram community,
00:22:35
Speaker
Being part of all of that is amazing. Finding all of these new friendships and this huge network worldwide of ceramic artists has been a huge opportunity for me. Absolutely love that. So now you contribute your growth as an artist to taking classes and learning from the pro. Can you tell me more about this?
00:22:58
Speaker
I think of myself as a forever student. If I could have afforded to stay in college for the rest of my life, I absolutely would have. I never want to stop learning. I love taking classes. I love expanding my mind and my skills. So for me,
00:23:17
Speaker
Taking classes is pretty essential and even still, I'm still learning new things. I've been doing pottery for 17 years and you're never going to know everything. That's one of the fun things about clay, like even
00:23:30
Speaker
Even if you're in it for 50 years, you're still going to be learning new things. So I love that aspect of it. I just took a class last year with Brian Wilkerson at the Knoxville Art Center, because we moved to Knoxville last year. And it was so fun to be in a room with him and learning from him.
00:23:48
Speaker
And it was a beginner level course, but I picked up so much just from having him as a teacher. It's so interesting to constantly be learning and constantly be open to learning. And another thing is sometimes learning
00:24:05
Speaker
about pottery can come from unlikely places. One short story for me, I struggled hard with learning how to throw for a really long time. It took me probably six months to learn how to be comfortable on the wheel. And that was only because of another student in my class, not my teacher. My teacher didn't teach very well about throwing. He taught well for other things, but
00:24:33
Speaker
He didn't teach well on throwing and I couldn't get it. And another student stayed after class with me one day and we worked for like three or four hours on the wheel. And she taught me how to throw on the wheel and she knew barely more than I did. She was also a beginner in a ceramics one class, but she knew enough more than I did that she could teach me how to throw on the wheel.
00:24:55
Speaker
So I think it's important to just always be open to new opportunities. They can come from anywhere and never, never stop learning. Never think that you know all of it because that's not possible. Absolutely agree. Shaping Nation, the more you learn, the better your pottery is going to get. So keep on learning. Never stop learning. I love that.
Lifelong Learning and Resilience
00:25:16
Speaker
Now, what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own unique voice with their pottery? I thought a lot about this.
00:25:24
Speaker
I, I have a lot of books about art and finding your voice. A really good one is by Lisa Congdon. She has a lot of great books, but one of her books inside of it, one little piece is actually a quote from another artist and it says, make piles of art. And that's it make piles of art. And that's always really stuck with me. You.
00:25:47
Speaker
You can't expect yourself to find your voice when you're first starting. It takes years. It takes a lot. It takes piles of art to get to that point. Your uniqueness and your interests and your style will develop all on its own when you make piles of art. And as a potter, a lot of those piles go in the reclaim bucket. A lot of them get broken. A lot of them are crap. A lot of them get thrown out.
00:26:14
Speaker
Some of them sit on your shelf for years and you're like, whoa, that was me. I used to do that. I used to be that bad at that. And now look at where I am. So I think making piles of art, that's not my quote, but that has been something that has always stuck with me with any medium that I've ever tried. The more you do it, the better you're going to get, the more your voice is going to come out.
00:26:38
Speaker
absolutely great Meredith it has been so great chatting with you today and as we come to a close here what is one thing you want to hammer home with my listeners today this is another one I thought a lot about and what I what I what I want to really hammer home is pottery will keep you humble
00:26:57
Speaker
And don't let it break you. You break the pots. They don't break you. You can fail upwards. You can keep doing better. You can change. You can move forward. Don't let it break you. I, I've been doing pottery for 17 years. I consider myself to be quite good at it. And even still just last week, I had a number of enormous failures and it.
00:27:22
Speaker
It hurts. It sucks. But you can't, you can't give up. You got to keep pushing, keep growing, keep learning, keep moving forward. It will get better. And you like, like my two year old son has taught me, you can't, can't let your mistakes break you. You just got to get up and dust yourself off and move forward. Absolutely agree. And those are some excellent parting words of advice. Meredith, it's been so great sharing with you today. Where can my listeners go and learn more about you?
00:27:49
Speaker
I have a website, maryskier.com and Mary is spelled like Merry Christmas. M-E-R-R-Y-S-K-Y-E-R.com. That's my website. And you can find me on Instagram at maryskier also. Thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery. If you are struggling with finding your own theme for your pottery so that, you know, you are known for something,
00:28:15
Speaker
I put together five themes that you can use and you can take. All you have to do is go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes, that's five, three themes to get these 53 themes. It's really important for you to find a theme for your pottery so that you're not gonna get, you can have multiple styles with your pottery and you can be known for something. So again, go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes, that's five, three themes.
00:28:45
Speaker
to get these 53 themes. Thanks guys, I'll see you guys next time.