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Combining Clay And Glass with Kelly Witmer
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In this episode of Shaping Your Pottery, host Nic Torres interviews Kelly Witmer, a talented artist known for her unique combination of clay and glass in her pottery. Kelly shares her journey of overcoming rejection, the evolution of her work, and the experimentation that helped her find her distinctive pottery voice. The conversation covers everything from Kelly's early struggles in art school to her experience in combining glass and clay, the impact of various inspirations like human anatomy and nature, and the importance of continuous learning and adaptation. Additionally, Kelly discusses the business side of being an artist, the significance of residencies, and offers insightful advice for aspiring artists. Listeners will learn practical tips about working with ceramics and glass, as well as motivational advice on perseverance and creative exploration. You can learn more about kelly by checking out her website https://www.kellywitmer.com/
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00:00 Introduction to Kelly Witmer 00:41 Overcoming Rejection as an Artist 01:52 Journey into Pottery and Sculptures 02:54 Combining Ceramics and Glass 05:11 Artistic Inspirations and Techniques 07:18 Exploring Multiple Art Forms 08:11 Creating Glass and Ceramic Sculptures 09:22 Advice for Aspiring Artists 10:15 The Business Side of Art 14:44 Discovering Your Artistic Voice 15:25 The Importance of Artistic Communities 17:44 Final Thoughts and Farewell
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Transcript
Interview Introduction: Kelly Whitmer's Unique Pottery
00:00:00
Speaker
I got to interview Kelly Whitmer. Kelly makes some incredible pottery where she combines clay and glass together. In this episode, you will learn Kelly's best practices to combining clay and glass together.
00:00:11
Speaker
You also learn about how to not fall victim to rejection and how Kelly got over this herself.
Overcoming Rejection in Art
00:00:17
Speaker
One of last thing to learn about is, is about always evolving your work and how this helps you with finding your own pottery voice.
00:00:25
Speaker
And there's so much more in thiss episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. And I'll see you guys in there. If you love pottery and want to take your skills to the next level, you're in the right place.
Finding and Evolving Your Unique Style
00:00:35
Speaker
Find your own pottery style right here on Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Let's get started. Kelly, welcome to Pottery share with me, what's a failure you have experienced that you believe many artists are heading for?
00:00:48
Speaker
For me, that was just kind of falling victim to rejection, just getting overwhelmed by it. And this was a while back for me, like I hit a point where it was just a lot of it at once. And I just got to where I'm like,
00:01:04
Speaker
Screw it. I can't do this anymore. And I just I mean, i kind of gave up for a while. It was for like almost a decade. i I was still making stuff, but I just didn't call myself an artist and kind of like the the rat race of it can be difficult.
00:01:20
Speaker
What helped you over the rejection part of this? I don't know. There's not a magic cure. It's just time, you know? And like I said, i I stopped for a long time and then I kind of gradually got kind of started painting again and getting back into it.
00:01:36
Speaker
And maybe I just needed that time. i don't know. But for me now, it's just, it's just been sort of like time. I love that. Shaping Nation, sometimes the best way to go over Jackson simply just have time, put in the reps, and make the best work that possibly make.
00:01:50
Speaker
Absolutely love that.
Kelly's Journey into Ceramics and Glass
00:01:52
Speaker
So, tell me the story how you got started making sculptures. Well... It's, you know, I, I, sorry, I don't have a good answer to that. I actually, when I was in art school, I majored in photography.
00:02:06
Speaker
ah So very different than what I do now. And in like my first year, we had to take 3D, which was all kinds of different sculpture. And for one semester, I practically failed it because so bad. i did take ceramics in college, but I wasn't able to throw. And so it kind of made me feel like I was failing at it, so it wasn't something I really pursued.
00:02:31
Speaker
But yeah, I'm kind of talking in circles and not really saying but what made me start doing it. I got back into ceramics about 12 years ago. i moved out here to the desert and a friend gifted me his old kiln.
00:02:44
Speaker
He owed me money and so he gave me a kiln instead. And so I had the time and the space and I just started playing around with it and gradually got more serious about it. So tell me about the moment when you started combining ceramics and glass together.
00:03:00
Speaker
Well, that I actually had a a really ugly ceiling light that I wanted to make a replacement for. And I just got this idea of like, oh, what if I cut these holes and melted glass through it? So it's like, and then had it flush to the ceiling.
00:03:16
Speaker
So I made that and I happened to have some glass lying around some fusible because I was doing glass fusing during that long break of I'm not an artist. I was making some jewelry. I had a small kiln that I got on eBay.
00:03:30
Speaker
So I had some glass lying around, so I just experimented with it and it came out pretty cool. And I was like, oh, what if I put this on the wall? And then I just kept going with it. What were you feeling when you started making all these experimentations with this?
00:03:45
Speaker
I love to experiment. So it's really exciting. I mean, there's been a lot of failures, especially in the beginning. But, you know, when you get some that work, even if they work a little bit in the right direction, it's really fun.
00:03:59
Speaker
Absolutely love that. Shape Nation, the more you experiment, the better off you're probably going to be finding something that clicks for you. what would you say was your biggest obstacle in trying to combine glass and clay together?
00:04:12
Speaker
probably Well, most, at first it was like getting them, keeping them from sticking to each other, you know, trying kiln wash and other things to stop that from happening. And then, and and keeping the glass from breaking. It's just the ceramic and glass expand and contract at different rates.
00:04:30
Speaker
And, and that's where, you know, it sometimes glass just doesn't want to work with it. What are some things you have done to kind of help you Get over the breaking a little bit for for glass.
00:04:46
Speaker
Well, I've gradually just discovered that some shapes won't work. It's hard to explain, especially like yeah if there's openings that are too close to each other. Basically, the glass falls down, and then it wants to shrink before the ceramic does, and it breaks. so i've just got And i tend to I usually play it safe you know and don't go too crazy with the long firing times.
Techniques and Inspirations in Sculpture
00:05:11
Speaker
You are inspired by the human body, prehistoric artifacts, and various wonders of nature.
00:05:17
Speaker
How do these things impact the way make your own sculptures? Well, I usually start with drawings in my sketchbook, and then and I do a lot of watercolors, which is kind of like I'll do kind of small ones and play out ideas, and then I'm also sketching ideas. So I'm just kind of making abstract paintings and then painting.
00:05:38
Speaker
sketching for sculptures and they kind of inspire each other. so i will sketch from, i mean, ideally actual museums, but I can't do that too often. So a lot of times it's photographs either from books or online of archaeological sculptures and sometimes pottery too and also like I've got biology books and anatomy and then sometimes actually you know painting from nature and kind of trying to abstract that how does painting everything beforehand help with actually like making a sculpture you're trying to get your idea out
00:06:17
Speaker
of different ways. i don't know, like some things just start repeating. I mean, like with all that, ah it's kind of like in in taking all these different inspirations, I'm kind of like creating this, like a visual vocabulary to create my own language.
00:06:34
Speaker
So it's just kind of a ongoing thing. Do you think more people should be using a sketchbook for their own artwork? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, i i assume most people do, but yeah.
00:06:47
Speaker
I also, I like doing it on paper, but I also enjoy playing with the iPad. Sometimes I'll actually take a picture of either a painting or a sculpture I'm working on.
00:06:59
Speaker
And because more and more I'm painting with glazes, when I'm kind of figuring out the design, when I have the blank, you know, the ah paint a piece that I'm going to glaze, I'll take a picture of it on my iPad and then I can draw over it, erase it, make another layer and try different stuff. And same with the paintings.
00:07:18
Speaker
Absolutely love that. And as you just mentioned, outside of working with ceramics and glass, you also paint and work with metal. Why did you decide to work with many different art forms?
00:07:30
Speaker
I think I didn't decide that the mediums decided for me. I don't know. I'm just drawn to a lot of that like, there's always something else I want to try. that's what I enjoy about it. I mean, there's a lot of people who just kind of focus on one thing and they get really good at it. And I've got all the admiration for that, but it's just not me. I've got a short attention span and I just always want to be trying new stuff.
00:07:58
Speaker
Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, you don't have to be stuck just making pottery or sculptures. You can branch out, you can paint, you can work with metal, do whatever you feel like, and that's how you find your own voice as well. Absolutely love that.
00:08:11
Speaker
So now, very quickly, can you walk me through your process when you're making your glass and ceramic sculptures? Well, I do the ceramic pieces first. I usually start with a slab, but not always. They used to be freeform shapes. Lately, they've become more...
00:08:29
Speaker
Oh my gosh, my brain. I'm sorry. I can't think of a word. um ah So anyway, I've just been ah creating patterns now. I started doing it with the paintings and I basically fold them in half, sort of like you might cut out a snowflake or something so that it's all equal and balanced. I did that with the paintings. So then I started trying it with the clay. I i get big rolls of paper at the hardware store and use that.
00:08:54
Speaker
Sometimes I bisque them. Sometimes I'll gl glaze them, do the glaze and bisque in one firing just because I'm firing a lot no lazy and Then I do another firing with the glass. Sometimes I'll bisque, then fire it with glass, and then do raccoon firing.
00:09:12
Speaker
um Sometimes the glass might fail. It falls through or it cracks, so I have to fire it again. So sometimes things have been fired over and over. What advice would you give to someone that also wants to start incorporating glass into their own ceramic work?
00:09:28
Speaker
I get a lot of messages with people saying, like, how do I do this? And it's like, you know, it's not easy to just explain. It was a lot of experimentation. So that's really well all I can recommend is, like, that you really kind of need to experiment a lot.
00:09:42
Speaker
Bullseye Glass has a lot of tutorials on their site. And I think you can kind of pay a subscription so that you can watch a bunch of recordings. So that's a good resource.
00:09:54
Speaker
But taking classes and... You know, that's what I just learned. Actually, it was kind of when I first started with fusing, it was, you know, it's not that it was pre internet, but it wasn't like you could just Google anything back then. So I was actually using books to figure it out.
00:10:12
Speaker
Absolutely love that. Some excellent advice right there. So let's talk about the business side of being an artist. Can you tell me about the moment when you decided to become a full time artist? There wasn't really a moment. I've mostly worked for myself most of my life.
00:10:27
Speaker
I've just had
Transition to Full-Time Artist
00:10:28
Speaker
weird jobs. Like I used to have stores for many years. Like when I was in college, that started because I had a booth at an antique market and then selling vintage clothes. And then afterwards I had a little shop, like I'd work in a bar at night, run the shop during the day. And later on, I started putting my paintings in the store and was selling them that way.
00:10:48
Speaker
and eventually... I had a few stores. I sold the one store and I was like, okay, I'm going to go full-time artist now. And I got a commission to do a bunch of paintings for Forever 21 clothing store.
00:11:00
Speaker
They were trying to go upscale. I think they changed their mind after a year or two, but... Anyway, I did a bunch of paintings for several stores they were opening and did good the first year, but then the economy kind of fell. And anyway, I'm rambling, but that's kind of how my life has been. It's been up and down, you know, where I was like, okay, I'm a full-time artist for a while. And then, okay, I'm going to have to pick up some other work. This isn't working out.
00:11:23
Speaker
I was doing Airbnb for a long time, like hosting people and managing them, not doing so much of that anymore. So now I'm mostly doing my art full-time.
00:11:35
Speaker
Absolutely love that. Can you tell me the story about when you got accepted into your first art gallery? Well, I don't have gallery representation, and I never have. So there's not a big moment there. I mean...
00:11:50
Speaker
Way back, even right after art school, some guy who just opened a gallery, showed some of my work, and then he ended up going out of business and never gave it back. Actually, a friend saw my work at another friend's house, and they told him they bought it for 50 bucks at a yard sale that the a gallery had.
00:12:09
Speaker
So, yeah. What were you feeling when you found out that your work had just been sold for just $50? I was really pissed off. really It was, you know, it was a big piece that I had spent a lot of time on. And I had tried tracking down the guy that ran the gallery. This was before I found out that he had sold it. i was just like, I just discovered he had closed. And I was like, Oh, where's my work?
00:12:33
Speaker
Oh, I'm not really sure. i'm not sure he he had moved. So there just wasn't, wasn't really anything I could do So correct me if i'm wrong, but You primarily sell your work through galleries or art museums. Can you tell me more about this? No, I don't actually. i mean, I've sold some work through galleries, but mostly just directly to people off my website or if they contact me or open studio sales, that kind of thing.
00:13:02
Speaker
ah But I have had some sales. Like I've been in some group shows, galleries. had my first museum show last year. And and that was a solo show. And that was great.
00:13:14
Speaker
I feel like I got lucky, but really it was through Instagram because the assistant curator followed me and showed my work to the curator. And so Instagram is a big, like it or not, necessary evil.
00:13:26
Speaker
ah you do mainly commission work? Oh, I occasionally do commissions work. I wouldn't call it mainly, but yeah, I've done like maybe, I don't know how many commissions.
00:13:38
Speaker
So you mentioned Instagram just a little bit ago. What advice would you give to other artists that want to use Instagram to help promote their own work? Well, it's, I mean, I put a lot of, I've took a few online classes, like, to kind of, you know, that other artists who were successful on Instagram gave, and so that, and got a lot of tips through that, and then just kind of you know, figured stuff out on my own as well. It is kind of like a trial and error, but, you know, you really just have to do it.
00:14:15
Speaker
If it, you know, if you feel like, and and the thing is you could be doing everything right and making great work. And then the algorithm is still kind of against you. It's gotten harder and harder. I mean, i I feel like I had more success because I started earlier with it because I could see like other artists I admired, like having some success. so i was like, OK, I'm really going to focus on this for a while and, um you know, put the work in.
00:14:42
Speaker
Some excellent advice right there. 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 art? Well, I feel like I still am discovering. I mean, you know, I have in the past been like, yeah, I think I'm kind of have a style now, but, and then it'll keep changing. Um, so I feel like there's a good chance that my work's always going to keep changing, or I'd rather prefer to say evolving because I don't really want to make the same thing over and over again.
00:15:14
Speaker
um Great shaping nation. Your work is going to evolve. It's never going to stay the same. And that is perfectly okay. The more you evolve, the better your work becomes. Absolutely love that. So you contribute growth as an artist to being around other artists and attending residencies.
Growing Through Community and Residencies
00:15:30
Speaker
Can you tell me more about this? Yeah, I think just like being around, there's something about, i guess, just kind of communicating with other artists.
00:15:43
Speaker
Residencies are great when you have the time to just kind of hang out and talk, or if you have studios where you're working with a, you know, or just any way that you can, um because I've been, I joined like a big group called NetVirc, and um so we've got sort of a collective, you know, where we meet up and go to galleries and stuff. It's just good because you can share your experiences pretty much because the art world is such a mystery, but then there's also so many different paths you can take.
00:16:09
Speaker
There's just so many. So it's great to be able to talk to people about things that they've done and what worked for them and what didn't. Yeah, it's good. you You can grow from other people's experiences and and share your own.
00:16:22
Speaker
Absolutely agree. 100%. Nation, get around other artists, get around other creative people, and your work grows from that just by being around them. Absolutely love that. So you have attended many residencies.
00:16:34
Speaker
What is something you've learned from one of your residencies that you still use today with your work? I mean, i haven't been to that many. i don't have like one magical thing i can say, ah you know, it but it's just great to get out of your usual routine. And it's a great way to meet other artists and kind of make connections that way.
00:16:58
Speaker
So I guess I just kind of learned to to keep doing, although I haven't been on a residency for a while. Absolutely love that. So what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own voice with their art?
Advice on Discovering Artistic Voice
00:17:10
Speaker
I guess just keep doing it. That's really, really just the only way, you know, keep, i mean, like we talked about experimentation is great.
00:17:22
Speaker
Sometimes even like, you know, it it's not illegal to, to copy other people's work. If you're not putting it out there as your own, you can learn that way. But, you know, just, I think putting in the time and, and,
00:17:36
Speaker
and just making as much work as you can that ah your voice will eventually come through. Absolutely g agree. Some excellent advice right there. Kelly has been wonderful chatting today. And as we're coming to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer home with my listeners today?
00:17:52
Speaker
i guess, like I said, just do the work and, you know, keep plugging and don't let the rejections get you down because they're going to come. You just got to believe in yourself and persevere.
00:18:04
Speaker
Excellent parting words advice. Absolutely love that. Kelly, it's been wonderful chatting for today. Where can my listeners go and learn more about you? My website is just my name. It's Kelly Whitmer, no H. People always put an H in Whitmer. I don't know.
00:18:17
Speaker
KellyWhitmer.com and it's my name on Instagram too. Hey, thanks for listening this episode of Shaping your Pottery with Nick Torres. If you want to master the art of pottery and dive deeper into the techniques of the potters I interview, I created a newsletter that does just that. It dives deep into the techniques of the potters I interview.
00:18:35
Speaker
If you want to learn more, go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash newsletter or click the link in the description to learn more.