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Mastering Sustainable Pottery with Christina Bendo
211 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of Shaping Your Pottery, Christina Bendo, a woodfire potter, delves into her journey and expertise in the world of pottery. Christina discusses the commonly held belief in the pottery community that potters must endure extensive and laborious methods to achieve success, which she passionately disagrees with, advocating for more sustainable practices. She shares her own experiences, including her early inspiration from her fifth-grade art teacher, her impactful three-year assistantship with Trista Chapman, and her enriching residency at the International Ceramic Studio in Hungary. Christina emphasizes the importance of sustainable work practices, finding one's voice, and continuously pushing creative boundaries. She also speaks on the value of community, particularly within the wood firing process, and offers advice to budding potters on discovering their unique voices. You can learn more about christina by checking out her instagram https://www.instagram.com/christinabendopottery/
The Questions we ask will determine how our pottery will look like that's why I created a Free 15 questions to help you discover your voice template go grab it here www.shapingyourpottery.com/questions
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00:00 Introduction and Initial Thoughts 00:09 Challenging Traditional Pottery Beliefs 01:46 Sustainable Pottery Practices 03:17 Christina's Pottery Journey 05:36 Assistantship with Trista Chapman 09:49 Residency at the International Ceramic Studio in Hungary 15:40 Developing a Unique Pottery Style 19:25 The Appeal of Wood Firing 29:27 Finding Community in Wood Firing 33:02 Advice for Aspiring Potters 35:40 Final Thoughts and Farewell
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Transcript
Challenges and Sustainable Practices in Pottery
00:00:00
Speaker
I really want to push it. I don't know how. And so the excitement was the was the main thing that I noticed. Well, I would say that with my background as a wood fire potter, you know, all potters have opinions about things. Wood fire potters have their own special opinions about things too and one thing that maybe would speak to your audience since you really focus on people finding their voice and you might have some younger folks, I think that there is a conception in the world of wood fire that especially when you're starting out and you're young that you have to do everything the hardest way possible. We're talking about firing for five days, cone 14 down everywhere, stacking wood during the firing, um
00:00:50
Speaker
you know, doing multiple overnight shifts. And it's kind of like this badge of honor to just be insane during the firing and put yourself through so much work. And I really kind of disagree with that as a a way of working and a rite of passage. I think that it teaches people bad habits. It teaches you It's not teaching you how to work in a way that's sustainable for your body. and you know Even just what comes with having to make decisions during the firing when you're tired, you are you don't make good decisions about the firing when you're operating from a deficit. and so That's something that I'm really
00:01:29
Speaker
passionate about when I teach other wood fire potters and like my assistant you know make things make your way of working one that is sustainable over time and you don't have to turn it into something crazy all the time. So how does somebody make their way of working sustainable? I would say for me that looks like it's a lot of making choices about what what you're going to work on and also how you're going to do it. So one one thing for me, I actually don't have my own kiln. I rent a kiln and so I'm taking the work there and all the artists are responsible for sourcing their own wood. For a long time I was bringing wood out there and chainsawing and splitting it myself, which that's how a lot of people work, right? But for my current situation it was just creating
00:02:21
Speaker
so much extra work. It was a lot of physical labor, a lot of time, so now I have a wood guy who delivers my wood and I don't cut every single piece myself and I'm okay with that. It's still a lot of work. And then, you know, I think that translates over to other parts as well. Coming up with ways that people can share shifts and actually get some rest during the firing and then Same thing with working in the studio. You've got to rest. You have to do different things. You can't grind your body into the ground because what we're doing is already a very hard way to make a living and so you want to make sure that you're preserving your body and your mind too while you're doing it.
00:03:03
Speaker
Absolutely loves that, a depth of degree. Shaping Nation, the most important part of pottery is to take care of your health first. If your body deteriorates, then you're not gonna be able to make pottery. So take care of your health, find a sustainable way to keep making pottery. I love that. So now tell me the story, how you got started
Early Inspirations and Memorable Stories
00:03:20
Speaker
making pots. Well, I'm going to tell you two stories because ah my story of how I started making pots is one that's pretty familiar to a lot of people. I didn't really start making pots until I was in college. I was said to be an English major, took a class, loved it and switched. And I absolutely value my time there, but I think that just because
00:03:43
Speaker
Like I said, that's an experience that a lot of people may have had. I wanted to tell one of my earliest stories of making pottery, which was in elementary school. And so I had this experience in the fifth grade. My art teacher's name is Mr. Grove. And I did not know this at the time, but he was an elementary school art teacher by day. But he actually is a wood fire potter over the summer. So he would teach during the school year. and then make wood fire pottery when he could. And so of course when it was time for us to work with Clay, that was his jam. He was really excited and he was really good at teaching it. And the project that we did was we made face cups. And little fifth grade me may have had a crush on my art teacher because I made a face cup that looked exactly like him. It was, he had red hair and he had a mustache and my cup happened to have those features on it.
00:04:38
Speaker
And it was kind of cute. So, but I did not score and slip the ear of my cup well enough. And so it, it fell off during one of the firings and he gave it back to me and I was really disappointed. And then of course, like any great teacher, he was able to put a great spin on it. And he said, well, you know, who else had red hair, a mustache, and was missing an ear? Van Gogh. Van Gogh. And so then now I had this you know this cup that was a problem and now it's something that I'm excited about because we of course had talked about Van Gogh's painting and later on as an adult I went out to his studio and on the studio tour and I bought my first wood fired pot from him and I've been back several times to visit since then and he's like just so excited that one of his little fifth grade students grew up to be a potter so
00:05:32
Speaker
I love that story. Love that.
Learning and Growth Through Assistantships
00:05:35
Speaker
That was a great story. So now tell me the story about when you did a three year assistantship with Trista Chapman. Um, so I worked for Trista. This was in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I went to school there and I graduated from school. I didn't really have a plan. I was going to go back to my hometown for the summer and kind of regroup and decide what I was going to do from there. And so I was getting ready to move out of town and I had been working on the weekends at this paint your own pottery studio when I was in school, which was fun, crazy. But I was doing some kids classes there and we moved the paint your own pottery business into a different building. And so we were in the downstairs and then upstairs there was a studio potter.
00:06:21
Speaker
who was Trista and I had not met her before and one day as I was kind of like I said finishing up my time in Fredericksburg getting ready to move back home she just popped her head over the it was like an open plan kind of building and so she popped her head over the stairs and she said are you Christina? Do you go to school at Mary Washington? Would you like a job? And so she hired me as her assistant And of course I did not leave town. I ended up staying in Fredericksburg and I worked for Trista for about three and a half years. And at the same time, so I worked part-time for her and I also got another part-time job at our local community art center. So I was managing their community clay studio and working for Trista and those things just went so well together. So I did all of her slab work.
00:07:13
Speaker
helped with the decorating, glazing pots, loading kilns, packing for shows. And I got to tell you, when you spend that much time with somebody, especially when we were decorating and we just kind of be sitting across from each other at the table, you get to know each other really well. And I just, I love Trista so much. She's like a a sister, mother, both things to me. And I just so loved working there. One of our other Potter friends ended up renting space from her for a while. And so it was the three of us up there and we would just have such an amazing time. It was really impactful for me. How did these three years help with your growth as an artist? I think that the three year period was really great for the length because
00:08:03
Speaker
I was there long enough that as my skills improved, I took on more and more responsibilities. And so eventually, you know, I started helping with some of the more complicated work. I went from doing just the really most basic decorating things to more detail kind of work. and I also got to see her business in real time so she's kind of since backed off from doing this but at the time that I worked for her she was doing maybe 15 to 20 shows in a season and so I really got to see
00:08:37
Speaker
How does one go about doing that? i I knew personally that I didn't want to do that many shows, but it was really fascinating to to watch how she managed that, the timing schedule that had to happen with planning making and firing and getting on the road, all that kind of stuff, and then also planning for a slow season. So I also worked for her during the winters when nothing was going on and that was really instructive for me. And I would also say that it really prepared me for dealing with the amount of minutiae and the more mundane tasks that come when you make pots for a living. So, you know, when you're in school, it's really exciting. You're working, you know, for a
00:09:24
Speaker
a grad show deadline or finals, things like that, but it it becomes a real job. And there's a lot of tasks that are not as fun and you still have to do them and they're messy and dirty and they're boring. And so being there and getting to see that side of things was really helpful for me for preparing myself to be making pots on my own.
Cultural Insights and Artistic Freedom in Hungary
00:09:47
Speaker
Absolutely love that. So now outside of this assistantship, you have also attended many other residencies, but the one that stood out for me was your residency at the International Ceramic Studio in Hungary. Can you tell me the story about this? Yeah, sure. It was an amazing time for me. So I had come to the end of my period working with Trista and also the end of my contract at Liberty Town, which is that other powdery studio that I mentioned and
00:10:16
Speaker
I had lined up a residency at Starworks that was going to start in January, but I kind of had the summer free. And again, I was kind of at loose ends. The lease was up on my apartment and I didn't want to renew it because I knew that I would be moving. And so I ended up staying with my folks that summer and I got a job at a farmer's market that I used to work at when I was still in school. And so I worked the whole summer at the farmer's market and saved up a bunch of money. I had a big pottery sale at my folks place and saved up money for some airfare. And I thought, what what can I do? I really want to travel. And so I had been once to Europe. I got to go, very privileged to go on a trip with my grandmother. She took me there.
00:11:04
Speaker
and we went to Budapest. And that was one of my favorite places. And my family is from Poland and Slovakia on my dad's side. And so I grew up with a lot of very traditional Eastern European foods and religious traditions. And I was really interested in the pottery culture in in that part of the world. And so I applied for the residency at the International Ceramic Studio. which is in Ketchkomet. It's a town that is, well, city, small city, that is about an hour south of Budapest, and I was accepted. So I went there, there were four other women who were from different places around the world, and it was just a really, really awesome time of exploration for me. So I learned about how different pottery culture is in other parts of the world. It it was kind of funny. I was so interested in these folk pots. Like I said, my family is from that part of the world. And so I was really interested in the folk traditions. And there are these beautiful earthenware, slipware pots produced in that part of the world. And so I i got to the center and I said, oh, you know, they asked, what kind of clay would you like to order? We're going to go to the clay supply store. I said, oh, can I get kind of get some of the the earthenware, the low fire clay? And they looked at me kind of funny and I thought,
00:12:28
Speaker
but's What's going on here? And they said, are you sure that you want that clay? I mean, there's there's lots of other things out there. And I said, no, that's what I want. And come to find out. So we had one of the other residents was a Hungarian woman and she said, yeah, the Hungarian artists in this part of the world, they don't use the earthenware clay. It's something that just students use to practice. And so there's this same kind of, you know, we have some hierarchies here in the US, but there was a similar hierarchy where porcelain was really the material that everyone was interested in working with some stoneware, but especially slipcast porcelain is very, very popular there. And so that was kind of interesting to learn.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then while I was there, I also went to a ton of different folk art museums. I love birding, so I got to study European birds and, you know, kind of incorporate that into the bird pots that I was making at the time. Me and another woman really like to run, so we would go running around the city and just get inspiration from the plants and the building architecture. And it was so this, there was this really rich cultural experience that I got to have. And another thing that was very illuminating about being there is that we met these famous Hungarian artists, which of course I hadn't heard of, but these very famous Hungarian ceramic artists that would come there to wood fire because there are not very many wood kilns in Hungary. and
00:13:56
Speaker
There were a couple nights that we were drinking the Polinka, which is the the sort of local schnapps. And they would tell us these stories about living through the Russian occupation and how making art was so, excuse me, so heavily suppressed. And it just, you know, that brought this whole other perspective of really great gratitude for being able to be an artist, be a ceramic artist and make pots for a living. you know, we take it for granted. And so that was also a really impactful part of that experience for me. How did
Evolving Pottery Style and Techniques
00:14:32
Speaker
your time here impact the way you change how you make your pottery? My time there? I would say, oh, that's a good question. I think that it took a really long time for all of the things that I soaked up while I was there to trickle out into my work. But I would definitely say that
00:14:56
Speaker
some of the, especially the architecture was, it was so stunning. And so some of the decorative kind of things have spilled over into my work. And I'm also really convicted about being grateful for being able to make a living as a potter. You know, like I said, those those artists were not allowed to do what they loved. And I think it's really easy for us to sometimes maybe complain about parts of the process that we don't like, or you don't like doing the business side of things. And it's good to have the reminder that it's a real privilege what we do, and we should treat it as such.
00:15:38
Speaker
Definitely agree. I absolutely love that. So let's talk about your pottery. Can you tell me the story how you started making the pottery that you make today? Sure. So I started in earthenware. That was my first love back when I still lived in Fredericksburg and I was working with Trista and I had been doing graffito work when I was in college, very image-based. And when I ended up in this position at Liberty Town, that was when I sort first started making pots of my own and just, it's kind of like, well, let's
00:16:09
Speaker
try a little bit of everything and see what sticks. And so I was doing some pattern-based things, using some wax, doing some graffito. I developed these pinched serving pieces, which I now still make, but they don't have a pinch texture on them anymore. But I kind of developed this this technique that I now teach of making the serving pieces while I was there. And I kind of started dabbling in botanical patterns right at the end of my time there. And then as I said, I went from there I got to have that really great time at the International Ceramic Studio. And then I got this residency at Starworks in North Carolina.
00:16:49
Speaker
And I had been told that Takaro Shabata, who is the clay maker there, he develops all these fantastic wild clay bodies. He was working on an earthenware clay. And so that was the only thing that I'd ever really worked with. I had dabbled with a few other clay bodies in college, but that was the focus of my work. And I said, okay, that's great. That's gonna be so exciting. And when I got to Starworks, Takaro said, ooh, yeah, I didn't like where it was going. You know, he wants his clays to be as good as they possibly can be, especially if you're, you know, if you're selling a clay, you need it to perform really well and consistently for folks. And so he wasn't happy with this particular body. And so he had kind of gone back to the drawing board. And so there was no earthenware. And of course, I started working in content clay after that. And
00:17:41
Speaker
really had no idea when I got there that I had arrived in the heart of the pottery world and wood fire pottery world and so I thought really should take advantage of this and so I started working with the high fire clay doing wood firing and I was really interested in all using all the different local clays there that's a really great appeal of that place And so I was exploring painting with different wild clay slips, um firing them to Cone 10, and kind of using a combination again, some Scriptbido, some Wax Resist, and also developing a lot of the, what I would say, are some of my more signature forms that I make during that time there. And so
00:18:27
Speaker
That's kind of where I started doing the wax decoration was at Starworks and firing wood counts. And then I ended up moving to Western North Carolina and that was my first time renting studio space and just kind of being totally self-directed. There's no residency. There's no teaching. There's no studio maintenance besides, you know, my own space, of course. And I ended up. needing to find a wood kiln to fire. And so I found one out in this area and started firing that kiln. And so it was just kind of this constant evolution that happened and eventually got to the point where I am now. Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, your pottery is going to grow as your skills grow or as you change environments or as new experiences come into your life. And that's okay because it doesn't matter what you were making before, it matters what you're making now. I love that.
00:19:25
Speaker
So now you mentioned a couple of times that you enjoy wood firing. Why is it that you enjoy wood firing? I think that I enjoy wood firing because, well, there's a bunch of reasons. But one of the things that I find that in a lot of aspects of my life, i I really like low tech processes. And of course, wood firing is a very technical process, but It is an open container made of bricks that operates using draft. i I love that people have been doing it for thousands of years. And so I'm really drawn to processes that are kind of these pre-industrial processes. And in i like that I like that the wood firing
00:20:23
Speaker
has kind of this waiting period that happens with it and so you're laboring along with the kiln and then there's a time where you have to rest and reflect and then you unload the kiln and then after that you kind of have to investigate and see what happens and it's just a very it's a very dynamic experience and every time there's so many new things to explore with it. So I'm sure a lot of my listeners would like to try wood fires sometime during their pottery journey. How can somebody get started in wood fires? I would say, you know, one thing that you can do is find out if there's anybody in your area who has a wood kiln, especially the big kiln potters, like folks who have onigama kilns, they frequently need help with the firings. And so there's kind of a, there's a little bit of an etiquette to it. You know, I would say you definitely want to,
00:21:17
Speaker
get to know a person first before you just try to sort of insert yourself into into a firing. But a lot of times, you know if you're eager to have that experience, that's a really great way to get a taste of it. and It's mutually beneficial because especially with those big kilns, you need bodies and people that can stay awake during the night. and so you know Maybe get on a preheat shift somewhere and just try it out. and The more opportunities that you can maybe find for yourself like that, then you start to talk to people and just have conversations around the kiln and then suddenly you have a community and you know a bunch of people that would fire and you can kind of start to make more opportunities happen for yourself.
00:22:02
Speaker
Some excellent advice right there. I absolutely love it. So something interesting I found from your website, you said, my pots are a study in the contrast between everyday ritual and the constant change that surrounds us. Can you tell me more about this, how this impacts the way you make your pottery? Yeah, so I grew up outside a lot and I love the seasons that we have here on the east coast and just getting to observe how the landscape changes. I grew up going out and picking berries and doing all that kind of stuff and so I really love observing the changes of the seasons and of course if you
00:22:37
Speaker
seen my pots. I love plants, I love birds, very inspired by nature and so that of course is something that I really try to incorporate onto my pots. I, you know, I'll take a walk and see like, oh the trilliums are up now and so in the springtime I tend to make pots that have imagery of whatever's in bloom and that kind of changes throughout the seasons. But I'm also really interested lately thinking about it more metaphorically in seasons of life and there's a a favorite it's a
00:23:10
Speaker
ah Bible verse it's Ecclesiastes chapter 4 but more people might know it if you know the birdsong turn turn turn and it says um you know to everything there's a season and it kind of talks about how there's a season for growing there's a season for reaping a season for mourning a season for rejoicing and all these different opposites and I think that you know I throughout life and throughout your you know your pottery career since i that's what this podcast is about. There's going to be periods where you're working constantly and you're really in in the flow and feeling super inspired and then there's going to be lulls. You're going to have some long winters and or you know maybe something significant happens in your life and you can't get into the studio. and so I'm also really interested in those kind of seasons of life and then the things that are constant. and you know I think about
00:24:05
Speaker
the ritual of a mug, which so many of us talk about because we're we're potters and we're in we're in love with everyday ritual, right? But the idea that you could have a mug that is with you for a season and when you look at it, you think about, oh, that reminds me of this this time in my life when this was happening and then maybe something else happens and you you change up your routine, you use a different mug, someone else's mug. And so I think that
Design Process and Creative Breakthroughs
00:24:31
Speaker
these, very everyday objects also are very symbolic in that way. So now can you walk very briefly can you walk me through the steps you take when creating the designs onto your part? Yeah sure so I make all my pots let them get to leather hard
00:24:47
Speaker
I dip them in a colored slip so I have a bunch of different colors of slip that I use that are all good for content firing in the wood kiln. Then I bisque fire and I paint my botanical and animal designs in a wax resist and then I dip a bisque slip over that and then of course they go in the wood kiln and I introduce salt as well. Why do you dip your pots into slip? um I've always loved slip. I've been working with slip ever since I was an earthenware potter and I think that it allows you to have so much depth of surface and you can use it thicker, you can use it thinner, and it became really important for me at some point that I
00:25:31
Speaker
I wanted more than just, it's a lot of work to get brown, which is what people say about wood fire pots. And so I got really into developing these different color slips. And one of my good friends who fires with me, her name's Rose Hardesty, she kind of pushed me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to go down this exploration path. And now I'm just, you know, a slip nerd. We 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 pottery? So I definitely had a moment. I was, this was in 2018 and I was assisting Michael Klein teaching workshop at Haystack School of Craft. And it was a wild time. Oh my gosh. We had, I think we had 24 students in that class. It was,
00:26:21
Speaker
Lots of beginners. There was a lot going on. Michael was showing his wax painting technique, and also this was the first time that he had taught about his inlay. It was a wild class. All that to say, I didn't get to make very much work during the class, but the work that I did make kind of changed the direction that I was going in. And so at that time, Michael was doing all of his decorating on on green pots, so bone dry, but that's not suitable for students, right? They're not experienced enough to to decorate the bone dry pots and not drop them in the bucket or break them. And so we were bisquing all the pots.
00:26:58
Speaker
and doing the wax decoration on bisque and i had been doing a lot of wax decoration but it was all in leather hard pots and at the time you know i was commuting to my studio 40 minutes i had two other jobs and it was always just stress trying to make sure that I could get back to the pots and decorate them before they were too dry to be able to be dipped in slip. And so ah taking this workshop, you know getting to help Michael teach this workshop, um I was like, what? We can do it on the bisque? And so the I think I only had like two pots that I made during that workshop, but both of them were so much more detailed.
00:27:41
Speaker
than the botanical decoration that I had been doing on the leather hard pots and I really had been wanting to do birds for a long time and I couldn't figure out a way to do it without having the silhouettes be kind of clumsy or just feeling rushed and so those two pieces that I got to paint while assisting at the workshop were incredibly detailed and I just kept going after that and making the decoration more and more detailed and specific. And then I started adding the colored slips into it and working with that. And so that was a really big shift for me. And I think that's that's when I started making some of the pots, the earliest versions of the pots that I make now.
00:28:26
Speaker
What were you feeling when you made had this moment for your partner? Oh, just so excited. You know, you I think you you get to some points, especially as you're growing and developing, where you work on a technique and you get to a point where you're really happy with it, and then you kind of lose interest or it starts to be not as like, you don't like it as much anymore. And so the pots that I were making, they were, they were fine, but they were getting a little bit stale for me. And I was like, I really want to push it. I don't know how. And so the excitement was the, was the main thing that I noticed. And that was like, okay, app we need to follow that feeling. That's what needs to need to push this, keep going.
00:29:12
Speaker
Absolutely
Community and Mentorship Among Women Potters
00:29:13
Speaker
love that shaping nation if you come across a feeling where this like your pottery like this pottery is what I meant to be doing follow that feeling Continue following that feeling because that's where your voice is at. I absolutely love that So now you contribute growth as an artist to wood firing, as you mentioned earlier, with a community of women. Tell me more about this. So first of all, I just want to start by saying that I ah love men. They're great. I've had many wonderful male mentors, and so I don't want it to come across sounding like that. But there is something different about wood firing with other women. You know, in North Carolina here, it's pretty unique. I don't think that there is
00:29:55
Speaker
a community of women wood firing, I'm going to go ahead and risk it and say, maybe nowhere else in the country are there this many women wood fire potters gathered in a place. So I've gotten kind of used to it, but then I talked to people from other places and you know they still talk about being the only woman on the crew and and just kind of feeling like it's they're either out of place or maybe it's not as approachable because like it or not I mean physically I have things that I can't do as a woman that some man who is you know six foot tall can do no problem and so um just not having that pressure to perform and you know kind of as I alluded to at the beginning of the interview you know to do everything in the most physically demanding way possible and so it's like
00:30:44
Speaker
We've used an electric powered chainsaw before, and you know what? That's great because some of us are really small. I'm 5'3", and wielding a chainsaw that has a 30-inch bar on it is is not in the cards for me. so But more than that, I would say that it's just been a really wonderful process of nurturing each other. so i had a really bad firing in the kiln that I had been firing. My firing partner had skipped out on me and I decided to be a crazy person, do a firing by myself. I don't recommend it folks, even if it's a short one, don't do it. So I did this firing by myself and at you know at some point I just got too tired. And so part of the kiln was content and part of it only got to about eight. And I made a little post about it and it was kind of like, hey,
00:31:35
Speaker
here's what happened. You know, I really pushed myself and made some not smart decisions and I want to, you know, kind of share this experience with people of my failure. And this woman reached out to me, her name is Rose Hardesty, and she said, Hey, I live in that part of the world. How about I come help you the next time. And she showed up for my next firing with homemade Cornish pasties, which was sign number one that it was going to be a good time. Anyone who brings delicious homemade food to the firing is a, is a keeper. And Rose and I have been firing together ever since. And just being able to mentor each other and then gradually expanding our circle.
00:32:19
Speaker
to other women that either have their own wood kilns or are just learning and are interested in firing kilns. And actually
Discovering and Embracing a Unique Style
00:32:26
Speaker
this week I just loaded a kiln out in the Penland area and we're firing on Friday and there's going to be 14 women at this firing. And we were like, is this a record? I'm not sure that this has happened anywhere else. And so um it's just been so great to be a part of this really wonderful nurturing community. absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, find your people, get around other artists, other communities, whether it's women, men, whatever, get around those people because you're going to learn so much more from them just by being by them, by being by yourself. Absolutely love that. Now, what would you say are some new opportunities that started coming your way once you found your own unique form?
00:33:06
Speaker
i you know People can tell when you have found in a direction, I think. And so I started getting accepted into better shows. I also started having galleries seek me out versus always kind of being the one who has to pursue things. You know, of course you still have to do that for yourself. But, and also people said that they recognize my work. And so I think that a lot of times when you're starting out your your work still looks like that of your mentors of the people that you're surrounding yourself with or if you're like me and you're a wood fire person if you're always on somebody else's crew you're not in charge of making the decisions during the firing that really determine the aesthetics of the work and so at that point i had shifted into firing that kiln that i mentioned with my friend rose and really making all the choices and so you could see
00:34:02
Speaker
kind of my maturity as a wood fire potter as well. And I think people people could start to recognize that. love that So now what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own unique voice with their pot? I would say don't look too much at other people's pots. You know, look at it some, but don't, when it comes to actually making, like I don't have anyone else's pots in my studio. With the exception of maybe a mug that I walk in there with to drink tea out of, I don't have other pots around me in the studio. So that way when I'm making or when I'm sketching, it's kind of a blank slate for me.
00:34:37
Speaker
Because it's really easy to copy other people's work when you're first starting out. So that's
Continuous Learning and Evolution in Pottery
00:34:43
Speaker
one suggestion um Sketch a lot if that's something that you're into I made I mean I filled up sketchbooks worth of things what especially when I was developing forms for my pots and Also, just make a lot and be fearless about it. Don't be afraid of something failing you're gonna have to invest a lot of time to find your voice and the sooner that you just start putting those hours in and Making things even if they're but ugly and you throw them in the bucket and they go in the slot bucket The more that you try the more that you're going to find success Absolutely. Love that shaping nation the more you make the easier it's gonna become to find your own voice and if you're into sketching sketch a lot and then I forget the first thing you said well That was it. Yeah, just you know
00:35:33
Speaker
don't look too much at other people's pots for inspiration in order to start copying. Yes, that one. That's absolutely great. Christina, it's been great times today. And as we come to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer home with my listeners today? Sure. Yeah, it's been great, Nick. I've really, really enjoyed this. So I would say ah don't get stuck. Always keep learning and pushing yourself into new and uncomfortable territory. When you get in a pattern, and become complacent, the work gets stale and you get bored too. And so always make yourself kind of a way out. Don't get pigeonholed, create opportunities for maybe it's, you know, for me, it's been slip testing. Every single time that I fire a kiln, I put new slip tests in, even if I know that they they might not go on the work. So always create little opportunities to push yourself, try new things, change the work. And if you do that, the pots will be full of life and people will be able to tell.
00:36:30
Speaker
<unk> some x and parting words advice christtina it's been so great challenge today where can my listeners go and learn more You can go to my website, which is ChristinaBendo.com, and I'm also on Instagram at ChristinaBendoPottery. Thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. If you want to start discovering your own unique voice, you must first start with the right questions. That's why I put together a free 15 question booklet for you to start discovering your own unique pottery voice. All you have to do is go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash questions to get this free booklet.