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The Need To Create With Celeste Dowlan
200 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, Celeste Dowlan shares her journey into the world of pottery, emphasizing the importance of play and creativity. She discusses how her childhood experiences with mud shaped her artistic practice and the realization that pottery should be fun and experimental. Celeste describes the impact of her high school pottery class on her life, how a ceramics internship in New York helped her grow, and her unique method of creating sculptures through a ritualistic process. She also touches on the significance of slowing down to improve the quality of her work, the value of understanding the 'why' behind her art, and offers advice for fellow potters on finding their artistic voice and incorporating more play into their practice. You can learn more about Celeste by checking out her instagram by clicking this link https://www.instagram.com/celeste.dowlan/
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00:00 The Urge to Create 00:14 The Importance of Play in Pottery 00:48 Incorporating Play into Your Work 01:30 Discovering Pottery: A Personal Journey 03:48 Becoming a Ceramics Intern 05:46 Learning and Growing as an Intern 08:14 Exploring Artistic Voice and Experimentation 11:48 The Ritual of Sculpture Making 15:17 Finding Your Artistic Voice 24:22 Final Thoughts and Advice
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Transcript
The Need to Create Art
00:00:00
Speaker
I just feel this need to create. it's like I describe it as it's being deep in my chest. like i I can feel inside my chest that I need to create art. Celeste, welcome to Ship Your Pottery and share with me what is something you believe everyone in the pottery world should stop doing? I i believe that we should all stop making it so serious and we should play more. I think play is a really important.
00:00:27
Speaker
a really important part of ceramics. I mean, it's like playing with mud. That's what I did growing up. And I kind of take that mindset into my practice today. And I think not every piece has to be perfect. We can all loosen up a little bit and have some fun. And it's really important. That's what I think.
Starting with Playfulness in Pottery
00:00:47
Speaker
Agree. What are some advice you would give to someone that to incorporate more play into their work?
00:00:54
Speaker
I think that you could just start off with a block of clay and not have very many ideas and just start touching it and moving it and see where it goes and just loosen up all your expectations and just really see what your hands want to create and not have like a set idea of what you already want to do. Just kind of try and go in with no expectations.
Celeste's Pottery Journey
00:01:18
Speaker
Agree shaping nation your pieces don't have to be perfect and you don't have to have every idea Planned out either you can just go with the flow and let your ideas flow naturally absolutely love that So now tell me the story how you got started making pottery So as I said earlier, I was always playing in the mud as a kid, and I absolutely loved it. And I knew when I was a kid that I wanted to be an artist. It was like I was set on it from the very beginning. And then, you know, as I was growing up, I would like do like more 2D art like painting and drawing.
00:01:51
Speaker
and every now and then my mom would take me to a ceramic studio and we'd do a class and I'd love it and like I was obsessed with it and I was always trying to like do things that they told me not to do and like push the boundaries and it was really exciting and then in high school it's kind of funny and In the middle, like sophomore year of high school, I was like, I'm done with school. I don't want to be in school anymore. I want to like take my little test to get out and like leave. And they were like, no, you can't do that. And I was like, please, I want to go. So I was talking to my high school counselor and she was like, why don't you take like an art class? Why don't you take a pottery class? And I was like, fine, like I guess I'll stay and take ceramics. like
00:02:31
Speaker
whatever and then i ended up i took it and i absolutely fell in love and from that point on i just could not stop and i took another class the next year in high school and my ceramics teacher became my mentor and he is an incredible person. He gifted me my wheel so that I could throw during COVID because I was a senior in the first year of COVID. So he gave me a wheel. Every single day, I would just throw and do my other schoolwork, of course, but I would throw every day for hours. And I just I knew that that was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life since then. Love it. What were you feeling when you took that pottery class in your sophomore year of high school?
00:03:19
Speaker
I felt like this is where I was meant to be. I just knew that I needed to be with my hands, moving a material. I'm a very tactile person, and so I love to touch the clay. I mean, some people really hate like touching the but clay and like when it gets all sloppy. like A lot of people don't enjoy that, but I absolutely love it. And I just felt really free, and I think feeling free is a really important thing to me, and pottery does that for me.
00:03:46
Speaker
Absolutely loved that.
Becoming a Ceramics Intern
00:03:48
Speaker
So very recently, you became a ceramics intern. Tell me the story about this and how this came to be. So last semester at school, I was like, I really want to get an internship over the summer. And I wanted to get one that was far away from where I grew up, because I've never really like lived anywhere outside of like three hours of my hometown. So I wanted to like fling myself anywhere. So I was searching, and I found an internship for a pottery studio intern in New York, which is across the country from me.
00:04:25
Speaker
So I was like, you know what, I'm just going to do it. I think it would be fun to just go in a whole new space and just see what pottery is like, you know, across the country. And and so I applied and I got the job, which I was so excited about. it i I was so happy. I was telling the manager, I was like, it's meant to me. I'm coming to work for you. And she was like, okay. We became really good friends, but it was really fun. And I just kind of flung myself because I knew that's what I needed to do. Why did you need to do that?
00:05:02
Speaker
because I wanted to grow my practice because I've always been by the ocean creating pottery and the ocean and the landscapes here really inspire me and I wanted to push myself in ways that I haven't before. So I just kind of threw myself to a whole other landscape, different people, because I want to be a more versatile artist. And I think by putting myself in uncomfortable positions and pushing myself, that's how I'm going to do it.
00:05:34
Speaker
Absolutely love that shaping
Studio Maintenance and Internship Insights
00:05:36
Speaker
nation. Sometimes the best way to start getting new ideas for your work and maybe just challenge yourself as well is to simply change your environment and new ideas would naturally come to you. Absolutely love that. So over the last month and a half since you you became a ceramics intern, what is something you have learned that helped you with your own practice?
00:05:54
Speaker
I have learned they i've learned so many like studio maintenance side of things. like Keeping a studio really clean and why we keep a studio clean. Really good ways to recycle clay because it's really important to recycle your materials because you know it's good to be conscious of our environment with ceramics because you know it can create a lot of waste and I think we can merge. you know the environment with creating art in a like a happy medium kind of way. I really learned so many things. I also got to spend a lot of time working on my own practice and honing in my skills and doing things that challenge me that I don't usually like doing like handles. I know I can do them. I know I don't like making mugs, but
00:06:46
Speaker
When I was there, I did a seven-day mug series, and that really pushed me to be like, you know what? You are. You can make mugs. You can do handles, and not everything is as scary as you may think it is. You just need to try it. You see, I'm the opposite. I actually enjoy making mugs. but anything else i Really? That is so funny. I hate them, but now I like them.
00:07:11
Speaker
Absolutely love it. So now what advice would you give to someone looking to also become an intern for a ceramic artist? I think that, you know, trying to learn studio maintenance, like techniques kind of and like how a studio is run like doing research on like How loading it how to load a account if you don't know that already or like, you know Keeping the studio clean and just kind of getting like a ah small base layer of knowledge and then going and applying for these things You know, you can I just searched on Google ceramics internships and I stumbled across a few The one I got though. I'm really happy with but you just got to apply because
00:07:55
Speaker
You're going to learn so much there that, you know, having like a good, I think learning how to, or knowing kind of basic knowledge on loading kilns and like, kind of like how they work is kind of important, but I'm sure they'll teach that. I think it depends on each internship, but mostly just apply. Love that advice. So let's talk about your
Intuitive Pottery and Expression
00:08:15
Speaker
pottery. Can you tell me the story, how you started making the pottery that you make today?
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, so my practice, i really it comes from like a very intuitive place in my soul. like When I make things, I don't really go in with a vision of what they're going to look like or how they're going to turn out. I kind of just do what my body feels like it needs to create.
00:08:41
Speaker
so I just kind of, as you know, the days move on and like the environment that I'm in, wherever I'm at at that moment, that's kind of what I end up producing. but You are inspired by texture found in nature. Tell me more about this and how this impacts the way you make your own pottery.
00:09:01
Speaker
Of course. So I am obsessed with like crunchy, goopy, like textures that kind of makes your skin crawl and kind of are gross, but like make them fun colored. So they're not as like nasty. So like when I go on hikes around where I grew up, there's like all these lichen on the rocks and there's these really cool like rock formations and then at the beach which is my main source of inspiration there's all sorts of like creatures that have these really fun crunchy textures on them or just like and like I like to look at things
00:09:38
Speaker
the ocean or like when I'm on hikes on like ah a smaller scale so I'll like zoom into like a small section and really look at that micro texture that is there because I think it's really intriguing to like zoom in because we just see it from a really broad you know large perspective and we're like yeah that's a cool rock.
00:09:57
Speaker
Or that's a cool little like, fan situation. But when you really like zoom in and see like, what's going on, it's really intriguing. So I kind of, on a few of the series of the sculptures that I'm working on, I kind of like to blow up that scale. And so I have like a sculpture that's like, a foot, you know, maybe like a foot by a foot. And it's kind of like a larger scale of one of those micro textures.
00:10:24
Speaker
Love that.
Balancing Functional and Sculptural Pottery
00:10:25
Speaker
So something I love about your pottery is that you don't just stick with functional pottery. You also make some elaborate sculptures. Tell me more about this. Of course. So I really like to do everything that I can. I like to push myself. I mainly sell my functional pottery and I do it for joy, but also, you know, as a source of like somewhat, not very much income, but some income.
00:10:52
Speaker
And because I want to start like selling my functional wear as like a business, I have a website and I'm selling some on there but I want it to get you know more traction and I use my sculptural work that's more play.
00:11:08
Speaker
like When I'm creating my sculptures, I go outside and i I don't do them in the studio. I go outside, I sit on the ground, and I take a big block of clay, and I throw it on the ground, I step on it. i like It's a full body experience for me. If you saw me making my sculptures, you'd be like, what the heck is this girl doing? like I am dancing, I'm jumping around them. i like It's a whole... like I don't know ritual but it's more of like releasing you know the creativity inside of me when I need to feel really free. When did you start doing this ritual way of making your sculptures? I think I started it
00:11:55
Speaker
Like two so two years ago, I made my first one like this. So I threw a piece on the wheel and I was like, this is the most horrendous thing I've ever seen. It is off centered. It was maybe like a 15 pound.
00:12:12
Speaker
thrown piece and I was like this is so ugly like it's like in now it's not perfect at all and so I was really kind of upset and so I just started like poking my fingers through it and like squeezing it and then I had some dried colored slip and I was like shoving that in it and like I started shoving this pieces in there and just like really like getting wild with it and I was like wow that felt really good I liked that and then I really enjoyed how it turned out after I fired it and I i spray painted it too with some hot pink and some yellow it was it was crazy it was really fun and I really enjoyed that and then that was kind of the end of that it was my first one and then about like a year and a half later I went
00:12:56
Speaker
to the school that I'm at now. And I was like, I feel kind of stuck in my practice. I miss home. I want to bring the creativity that I have when I'm back home at my home studio to this new studio. And I wasn't sure how to do it. And I was thinking back on all the pieces that I've created while I'm at home and which ones like really made me feel creative and free and just be able to play again.
00:13:25
Speaker
And I thought of that when I was like, hmm, I think I need to try that again. So at school, then I was like, I'm just going to do it. So I went outside, did my whole little. Fananigan ritual rule. And I was like, okay, this is where I need to be going. I just felt it. I was like, this is the direction. So fast forward to now I have over 25 of them and I am going to put them all on a wall.
00:13:55
Speaker
going to be a modular wall piece that I think is going to be around like five feet long to like three to four feet tall and so that's where it's headed. It started really small and now it's going to become a massive wall piece which I'm really excited about.
The Drive to Create Art
00:14:13
Speaker
Love that shaping nation. You don't have to do the whole mundane things that but people do. You can throw away, you can throw your clay, you can add other stuff. You can do all kinds of stuff to your clay. It doesn't matter. Do what and you enjoy and that's how you find your voice. I absolutely love that. So something I found interesting from your website is you said, my practice is driven from a longing to create. Can you tell me more about this?
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. So ever since I was little, I just feel this need to create. It's like, I describe it as it's being deep in my chest. Like I, I can feel inside my chest that I need to create art and I need to just make things with my hands. And when I take a step back and like try to not do that, it never works out because like it's deep within me to where I need to make things.
00:15:04
Speaker
specifically in ceramics because I can really feel like I can put my my soul and my mark into the clay. Absolutely love that and definitely agree 100% and I'm sure a lot of my listeners agree as well. So now 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?
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's gonna sound kind of funny, but when I knew that I was like, you know what, I think this is where I need to be going and this is what I'm gonna do, was when I was doing a painting. It's not related to ceramics at all, but about, I don't know now.
00:15:44
Speaker
three years ago, maybe? I was working on a mural project at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. And I was just an artist assistant to this amazing artist. And I was asking him, I was like, how do you know, like, you're supposed to be doing art with your life? Like, how do you know this is where you're supposed to be? And he was like,
00:16:05
Speaker
you know you just know and like you can do it and he was giving me all of these lovely words of encouragement and we really like sat down and talked about you know why become an artist why is it meaningful to you and from that moment on moment on I was like you know what I know like I need to become an artist well I already knew that but like it solidified for me that this is what I need to do ceramics is how I'm gonna do it because you know I already was moving in that direction and that kind of just That just reaffirmed my plan and really helped me put in all the work and get to where I am now. What were you feeling after that conversation?
00:16:46
Speaker
I was feeling inspired. I was excited. i I still am excited for my conversation. I am so young. I have so much more to do. And I feel like I'm still just at the very like tiniest start of my journey. And I am so excited to see where it goes and how I can, you know, morph it and transform it as my life goes on. And I still have that excitement from him, you know, even today.
00:17:14
Speaker
Absolutely love that. So now what experiences have helped you the most with growing as an artist?
Importance of Experimentation
00:17:21
Speaker
I think just putting in the work. You just have to go and try things and play and just experiment. Experiment is a large part of my work. I do a lot of experimental work, especially in my sculptures, not so much in my functional wear, but just like getting out there and trying things. it's That's my biggest thing. You just have to do it. You can think about it all day long and be like, hmm, should I do this? I don't know. I'm nervous because I do do that.
00:17:53
Speaker
but you just got to put that aside and just get your hands dirty in the clay. Just go for it. Absolutely agree. So now you mentioned that experimentation is a big part of your practice. What is something you are currently experimenting with?
00:18:08
Speaker
Well, when I was in New York, I was doing a lot of underglaze like design experimentation um in my functional wear, which usually, you know previously my functional wear has been more of like you know one or two glazes.
00:18:24
Speaker
nothing like elaborate. But while I was there, we had a ton of underglazes. It was magical. Every single color, I am obsessed with color. So I was like, this is perfect for me. So I started doing a lot of sgraffito and painting on designs and really trying to slow down and focus on a piece for a longer period of time.
00:18:45
Speaker
Because I have a problem being a little too speedy. And being in New York, I was trying to learn how to, like, be more mindful and slow down and really focus on one piece. And so experimenting with, like, underglaze and, you know, a scroffito and parving, that kind of has been something I've been working on lately. So you mentioned trying to be more mindful and slowing down. Has that helped you at all?
00:19:15
Speaker
Oh, of course, 1000%. I have a tendency to just like bust out like a ton of things and kind of make them really fast and, you know, just go for quantity because I i love quantity, but Since I've been slowing down, I've still been making the quantity, but the quality of the work I've noticed has gone up. they I've been thinking of more details like, you you know what is going to make this piece better as a user? Why do I want to do this? Why do I want to have this foot? Why is the shape of this foot like this? Will this make their experience better? I was working on a series of variables.
00:20:00
Speaker
And the first berry bowl I made was small. It had no handles. It had a short little foot and it was fine. But then throughout the week I did like an exploration on how can I make this berry bowl the most functional that can be and also the most like user friendly. So by the end of the week I had a larger berry bowl and it had handles on the sides so you could grab it. And then the shape kind of was, it was kind of like a a bowl plate, I call them blates. It was a blade shape. And
00:20:40
Speaker
that way so it has more space for the berries and you could fit like you know a different size range of them and so it becomes more versatile because you don't have to use it just for blueberries you can put strawberries in there too because it's larger and then I was thinking about you know having a little dish under the berry bowl so that when you want to use it you can take the little plate over put it on your table and then put the berry bowl on top of it so you're not getting your table all wet so it's become more of like thinking how I can make things more functional and make these pieces the best that I can, which I'm still learning. I have no answers. I'm always pushing forward. For those that are also kind of fast pacing potters, what advice would you give them to slow down? Oh, that's hard. I think ah it's going to be painful, I will say. Like, I think you just have to
00:21:35
Speaker
It's been so hard to for me trying to learn how to slow down and I have not slowed down nearly as much as I wanted myself to, but just kind of like sitting there and kind of what I started doing was making my movements slower because like when I'm throwing, I usually I throw pretty quickly. And so I'm like, okay, we're going to do this poll like 50% slower than you normally do. And just kind of putting my more once again, putting myself in uncomfortable positions to grow myself as an artist.
00:22:05
Speaker
Absolutely love that. Some excellent advice right there.
Understanding the 'Why' in Art
00:22:09
Speaker
Now, what would you say was your biggest obstacle when it came to finding your own voice? I think I wasn't doing a lot of thinking about why I do what I do. And the moment that I started really like sitting down and doing more thinking on why I'm doing what I'm doing. Why do I want to create the art I want to create?
00:22:33
Speaker
How am I gonna present you know my art? I think that really helped because I can make art all day long and i I just make things, but I feel like it's meaningful to have a why because people would ask me, why are you doing this? What are you doing?
00:22:50
Speaker
you know, why are you doing art? And I'd be like, I don't know. I i so i don't know. I just do it. And like, that was never a good enough answer for me. So the minute like I sat down, which it actually happened pretty recently, like I really, last semester, I really did a ton of thinking and processing on why I'm doing what I'm doing. And that's when I was like, you know what, I lost my train of thought. Anyways, that's the end. What is the why behind your work?
00:23:19
Speaker
It comes from, you know, the longing to create, taking and topics from nature like texture and putting them into my ceramics. I need to just, it's mostly because I need to play and I feel it in my soul and I have this intuitive feeling that I need to make art and that it's something that I i need to do.
00:23:46
Speaker
We loved that. Now, what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own unique artistic voice?
Finding Your Artistic Voice
00:23:52
Speaker
I think, once again, you just need to try a whole bunch of things and just play. And maybe you like this style. Okay, try that. Maybe you like that. Try that. Even if you don't like something, maybe you should try it. You never know. You might like it. And just like try as much as you can do because It's so much more fun but when you just play and experiment and try to broaden your your practice and your experiments. Absolutely, Grease. An excellent advisor there. Celeste, it's 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? I really want to hammer home that everyone should play and have fun with pottery because it doesn't have to be that serious. And it's really a space for us to
00:24:39
Speaker
I think reconnect with our inner child. Absolutely greasy. Some ex imparting words of advice. Celeste, it's been a great
Connecting with Celeste's Work
00:24:46
Speaker
challenge today. Where can my listeners go and learn more about you? I have Instagram, ah Celeste.Dowland, and then I also have a website, w www.CelesteDowland.com, and I sell my work there, and I also have my portfolio on there.
00:25:02
Speaker
Hey thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. If you are a hobby potter and looking to connect with more like-minded creatives I have the thing just for you. I created a community called The Clay Games where each month we do a fun monthly pottery challenge and we connect and help each other grow and to make our best pottery that we can make.
00:25:21
Speaker
If you would like to join the clay games community, go to shapeyourpottery.com forward slash community to join. I hope to see you in there and I can't wait to see your pottery again. Go to shapeyourpottery.com forward slash community to join the clay games community.