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#338 Totem Pottery and the Power of Curiosity with Katie Bramlage
52 Plays2 years ago
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Todays Episode features an interview with pottery artist Katie Bramlage, who discusses her journey in pottery, the influence of her background, the importance of resourcefulness, and her passion for teaching pottery. She also talks about her unique totem theme pottery and the process behind creating her artwork. You can learn more about Katie by checking out her instagram @_katiebramlage_/
Top 3 Value Bombs:
1. **Embrace curiosity and limited resources**: Katie emphasizes that her creativity and unique pottery style come from a place of curiosity and working with limited resources. She encourages potters to explore other art forms and be resourceful in their pottery-making process.
2. **Celebrate your wins**: Katie mentions the importance of celebrating small victories along the pottery journey. By acknowledging and appreciating these wins, potters can stay motivated and inspired to continue their artistic endeavors.
3. **Discovering your pottery voice**: Katie believes that pottery is a vehicle for expressing one's unique voice. She advises potters to reflect on their innate joy and childhood experiences to find inspiration for their pottery creations. By tapping into their personal joy, potters can develop their own artistic style and create meaningful pottery.
Take this Free Quiz to see how close you are to finding your pottery voice click here to take the quiz shapingyourpottery.com/quiz
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Everything that I make comes from this curious place. I don't have a ton of resources. I'm using my hands where I am with what I've got. And I see what comes forth. What is up, Shaping Nation? This is Nick Torres here. And on this episode of Shaping and Pottery, I have the great pleasure of interviewing Katie Bramlage. Katie makes some really incredible totem-themed pottery.
00:00:22
Speaker
In this episode, you will learn how Katie makes her totem theme pottery. You'll also learn about why you just need to be curious, be curious about life around you, be curious about the clay. You'll also learn about why you might need to limit your resources in order to start building your skills a little bit better. And finally, you'll learn about why you should be gathering information from your life and from your pottery lessons and how this can impact the way you make your pottery.
00:00:49
Speaker
And there's so much more in this episode. I hope you guys enjoy it and see you guys in. If you love pottery and want to take your skills to the next level, you're in the right place. Find your own pottery style right here on Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Let's get started.
The Role of Nature in Creativity
00:01:06
Speaker
Katie, welcome, shape your pottery and share with me what is something you believe potters should be doing to have success in pottery.
00:01:12
Speaker
Oh, I think that pottery should be exploring lots of other things besides pottery to be successful in pottery.
00:01:20
Speaker
Absolutely agree. I love that. So now tell me a story how you got started in ceramics. So ceramics Well, I would say I got started very young I've been picking up rocks and sticks and things since I was a kid and figured out what Having hands in pockets was good for and I've just always stayed very close to the earth I would dig up raw clay on vacation and bring it home when we would go to lakes in Minnesota and so like I've always just been like I
00:01:49
Speaker
Thinking of the ground is very important and wanting to bring it home with me. So fast forward a few years. I went through high school, traditional, moved to the Colorado Rocky Mountains, was a liftee, learned how to be a ski bomb, took some physical geology classes out there. Those really like lit a fire under me about how the earth works and how
00:02:15
Speaker
you know, mines of minerals and deposits come to be and sort of opening up a little bit more about plate tectonics and physical geology. I didn't put that all together into ceramics until later, but from there I learned I moved back to Michigan, jumped into some interior design courses. So I learned how to lay out homes and I feel like
00:02:40
Speaker
Your home is your cave and it's very important to take good care of it and sort of treat it with respect and reverence. And from there, I found myself at what's called the College of Creative Studies located in downtown Detroit. And I studied woodworking and furniture making first. Then I did a year in glassblowing before I formally came to a ceramic program.
00:03:09
Speaker
So I sort of accumulated all these different skills and sort of perspectives through education and life. And I was sort of thinking about like, okay, how do I become like a geologist and make that my life or interior designer and make that my life? And so the more I learned about each of those different practices and skills and trades, it just kind of kept me hunting for a better fit until I got to clay.
00:03:37
Speaker
I love that. Such a great story. Now,
Understanding Art and Business
00:03:40
Speaker
tell me about your time working at the Artisans bench. Oh, the Artisans bench was my first job after I graduated with a formal BFA.
00:03:50
Speaker
And I was given a lot of freedom to explain creatively. I learned visual merchandising, how important it is to set up really beautiful artwork, how there's hierarchy and how people look at things when they want to buy something, moving through a retail location, striking up a conversation, basically just like,
00:04:14
Speaker
getting out of the studio and into a retail location and walking the walk and learning how to talk the talk and for many years I represented other artists work like I was selling we represented
00:04:29
Speaker
You know, I would say anywhere between 60 and a hundred artists, most of them from Michigan. So the regionality was very important, but we were expanding our collection and it was, it was very formative and I got to do window displays. So I wore a lot of different hats and I kind of learned the business side of art. How did this time at the Artisans bench help you with growing as an artist?
00:04:54
Speaker
Well, it's so cool to see how everyone else's brains are working or try to figure out how they may have come to what they've created. It's awesome. I love looking at, we also specialized in hand knotted rugs.
00:05:08
Speaker
So that's, you know, a language I'm not very familiar with. And I'm just blown away by the amount of effort and talent that goes into every single one of those rugs, into every single painting. It just is a wonderful way to gain a lot of respect around many different processes. I love that. Shaping Nation, sometimes you just need to get around other art forms, other processes to maybe get ideas for your own pottery. I love that.
00:05:36
Speaker
So now what is something you learn from your time here at the Origins bench that you still use today? Oh, everything. I mean, how to price my work, just talking to people. Every time you set up a booth, you got a visual merchandise and think about how people are going to enter your booth. And if you're being approached from the left or the right, or if the lighting isn't so good, how do you, you know, play up your assets and downplay your, your kind of the weak spots?
00:06:04
Speaker
And, you know, put together a really beautiful, cohesive collection. I mean, you want, when you are setting up your work, it's so people can interact with you and shop and, you know, when people buy something that's an exchange in energy. And so like, you know, setting that up every time you go out and interact with the world. I love that. Excellent advice right there. So now.
00:06:30
Speaker
Let's talk about your pottery. Can you tell me the story how you started making the totem pottery that you make today? Well, totems,
Resourcefulness and Innovation in Pottery
00:06:38
Speaker
yes, definitely. Pragmatically, they came from wanting to fill up my kiln more efficiently and more effectively because I was originally making these larger kind of open woven vessels. And so they have a lot of volume, but not a very big footprint. And so these totem pieces,
00:06:57
Speaker
Anytime I had leftover clay from a basket, I just found myself creating these rings and thinking, oh, I love them en masse. One day I'm going to do something with them. And so I'm just was always using the scraps from my baskets to create these sort of components that would help fill up my shelves because after you graduate or you work for yourself, you're paying for all your own firings. So it was pretty quickly dawned upon me that
00:07:24
Speaker
I might as well fill the thing up. And so these components came to life and there is a gallery that I worked with and they loved offering workshops. And so they kind of put the bug in my ear about.
00:07:36
Speaker
How do we bring your work to the people? And so like basically tying these components together with string and thinking of them as a thank you note to your home and then taking that on the road and teaching people how to do it themselves has definitely like it's taken on its own life in a big way. I love that. Can you tell me how has your pottery evolved through the years into what you're making today?
00:08:03
Speaker
There's just been seasons, I would say, through the evolution. At a certain point, when you go from being kind of a hobbyist or having many forms of income, what you expect your pottery to generate for you financially is different than when it's your full-time job. And so then you have to kind of look at
00:08:23
Speaker
And it gets really black and white and kind of unfawn pretty fast when you think about how many pieces you need to make a day or a week or however you partition time into making your month goals and being met into making your year met. So the work sort of has gotten more efficient.
00:08:42
Speaker
the more hats I was wearing. And so I had a store and I closed it so that I could maybe slow down a little bit and start to play some more and not worry about the efficiency of everything. But I love to imagine that
00:08:59
Speaker
I'm a cave girl decorating my cave. So everything that I make comes from this curious place. I don't have a ton of resources. I'm using my hands where I am with what I've got. And I see what comes forth. Maybe I'm solving an in-home
00:09:18
Speaker
you know, decorative problem, like where do I put my kitchen utensils or how do I make my napkins look cool? Or it's just, you know, purely more art form, and just meant to evoke feelings of calm or, you know, things I like to imagine the feelings that come forth when people are on beaches. I love that. So now you mentioned that you picked yourself as a cave girl with no resources. Would you mind telling me more about that? Yes.
00:09:48
Speaker
Definitely. I think that that response, I feel like it's a big part of my personality to just sort of jump in and not wait for the conditions to be perfect or to have exactly, you know, have exactly the perfect tool. I believe there's something to be said for using the right tool for the right job if you have it. But I also think that there's a lot of ingenuity that comes with having some limited resources.
00:10:13
Speaker
And, you know, my art career was spawning when I had very limited resources. You have, you know, I got my art degree. I was feeling really great, have a job, but, you know, student debt is real. Being an artist is hard. And so the having limited resources thing was partially.
00:10:32
Speaker
out of necessity and then also it's like okay if we have less resources like why don't we make it fun and why don't we make it a way to approach life and so it's it's never from a point of despair it's always from like it's a MacGyver it's more of a MacGyver approach to life you know just and eventually I will I will go and buy the tool that makes my job more efficient
00:11:00
Speaker
But I also, I'm starting to teach pottery, but I want people to be able to use what they have at their house. Like reach into your kitchen drawer, grab your scraggly looking fork, and you too can start to score pottery and slip, you know, like stick stuff together. And your apple knife is a great little paring knife and that cutting board, you know, like let's use it for clay. So it,
00:11:26
Speaker
It doesn't need to be fancy. You don't need the most extensive kiln. You need to be resourceful, and you can pull off clay. I love that. I never thought about using a fork to score, and I think I'm probably going to start doing that myself. That's such a great idea. They're everywhere. I love that. Shaping Nation, you do not need a lot of resources to begin making pottery or making beautiful pottery. In fact, the less resources, it's actually going to help you expand your artists and your skills even further. I love that.
00:11:56
Speaker
So now, can you give me a brief explanation on how you create one of your hanging totems? Absolutely. I start with having a huge collection. I imagine my beach is just full of pieces. So I start with lots of pieces and I edit back. And I like to pick textured pieces or a really beautiful feather and piece. And I let that one kind of be the thing that sings.
00:12:22
Speaker
And I use other components that maybe have less glaze or less detail kind of accompany those pieces. And I use a wax polyester thread. I have gauged all of the holes to fit perfectly when you spin the thread together. It warms up and it can thread right through the holes. There's a period of laying out. And what I love is you can start from the bottom, you could start from the top, you could start from the middle.
00:12:49
Speaker
and I'll start any which way that I can't like there's not like I always start at the bottom. I just start where I'm most interested in the piece and I have rules so the mini guys are five pieces the mediums are 10 and the larges are 15 and so then I have parameters which gives me a little bit of organization to all the chaos when I'm looking at hundreds maybe even thousands of clay pieces. So
00:13:17
Speaker
I have to, I love to play games with myself. You know, sometimes I'll set up a timer and see how fast it takes me to tie a totem together just to see, you know, and take note, check in every once in a while, set a new record.
00:13:31
Speaker
But I'm playing games. I lay them out, and I don't know if you're familiar with Homage to the Square by Josef Albers, but he basically painted rectangles inside of each other. I'm sorry, squares, Homage to the Square. So he painted beautiful squares, but he was just taking paint right out of the tubes.
00:13:52
Speaker
If you look it up, it's in the 70s, but he allowed the whole thing to be a meditation. And he did thousands of them. They're in most museums. DIA has a beautiful kind of sunset palette, but he just really leaned into it. And I have made thousands of totems at this point. No two are ever the same. The components are different enough. The driftwood keeps it interesting. You know, it's just, they are a meditation at this point for me.
00:14:20
Speaker
I love that. Shaping Nation, if you're making a lot of different pottery a lot, like maybe make the same thing over and over again, they don't have to be the same thing all the time, always, because that just becomes boring after a while. So spice it up a little bit. I love that. So let's talk about the business side of pottery.
Challenges in Becoming a Full-time Potter
00:14:38
Speaker
Can you tell me about the moment when you decided to go full time with your pottery?
00:14:42
Speaker
I can't actually remember a moment specifically. It was a goal for a long time and I whittled away jobs that really kept a very strict schedule.
00:14:54
Speaker
So I went from managing the artist's bench full time to part time and taking on some interior design jobs and some other, I was pouring concrete driveways. So I was wearing lots of different hats that at the time felt like they gave me freedom and it wasn't, my art, my pottery wasn't to the point where it could sustain me yet, but I needed to give it more time and energy. So there was this dance
00:15:24
Speaker
many different vocations and just sort of you know like the scale just eventually like shifted and it was like you know what the pottery is starting to gain some steam and I'm actually distracting myself with taking on interior design jobs or doing things that are not the true focus now and then at that point it was easier to fully step into it.
00:15:49
Speaker
But, you know, and just any just like anything, it changes the way it tastes. When you move from a hobby to a job, it it gets a little more serious, but it doesn't mean it isn't wildly rewarding and you shouldn't like celebrate your victories. At my very first year full time artist, I would drink a little glass of champagne at the end of every month when I paid all my bills.
00:16:17
Speaker
And just have like a little tiny toast to like being an artist and you know, look forward to like buttoning up, dotting my I's, crossing my T's and getting to toast myself every month. And that kept me going for a while. It just wasn't motivating enough. And yeah. I love that. I love that. Shaping Nation, celebrate your wins. Celebrate your small wins because if you could celebrate your wins and then you're going to go a little bit further, you're going to be happier at the end of the day as well.
00:16:47
Speaker
Now, can you tell me, what were you feeling when you became a full-time potter? I was excited. I was, I was eager. You know, I found myself and everyone's going to go through this, you know, saying yes to things that maybe weren't the best fit or just anything that kind of comes your way to keep the boat afloat. But you have to, those are growing pains and you learn a lot through those.
00:17:11
Speaker
I can now say that I like to think of my business as a science experiment. And so we're just gathering data. And if you can kind of separate yourself and not take things so personally, but you're testing, right? You make a hypothesis. Will this product work or will this show be a good show for me? And then there's variables you can control.
00:17:33
Speaker
i.e. your effort, the fit and finish, does the kiln work, like everything show up on time, you know, the things you can't control or the weather, the public opinion, you know, but if you can gather data, take really good notes, and then not repeat lessons that you've already learned if they aren't suiting you, right? Like, I've stood at an art fair before and said,
00:18:00
Speaker
I remember vividly last year standing in this very same spot saying, I wasn't going to do this one again. And here I am, you know? And it was like, I didn't listen to myself. I didn't write it down. My friend works for the Army Corps of Engineers and they have what's called an after action review. Anytime you do a big event or go out on a limb or try something new, you should sit with yourself often. If you have any sort of assistance or like partners that are interested,
00:18:30
Speaker
go through it and make a bullet point of like what worked the variables that worked what didn't work would you do it again the risk cost benefit of how much it was to apply get in go to the show how much did you make all of those kind of things i love that so now earlier you mentioned that you are getting more into teaching more about pottery can you tell me more about this yeah last fall i got approached by a couple of different studios to
Teaching Pottery and Its Benefits
00:19:00
Speaker
Just teach intro to hand building, which I was nervous about. It had been, you know, 10 years since I felt like I was in an intro to hand building class. And while I roll coils and I pinch pots and I slab build all day long, I was still uncertain about being able to teach that to other people, beginners especially, but has gone wildly well. I love it.
00:19:25
Speaker
I've, you know, there's so many different ways to make a pinch pot to do coils to slab build. So if I can just show you what works for me, get that out. I basically want to open up the world of ceramics to people and think about how they can integrate it in their lives with very few tools. So part of what I try to teach is like,
00:19:46
Speaker
You know, using a basic rolling pin at your dining room table. We don't need a slab roller. Rolling pin will get the job done beautifully. It's been the only tool I've used for 10 years. You know, you just don't need the fancy stuff. You can start anywhere with almost nothing. I love that. Now, how would you say this has helped you with your own business?
00:20:08
Speaker
It's been awesome. It's fulfilling a sense of community that I felt like I was missing. I was actually considering just going back to school and continuing education or, you know, I'm not a strong wheel thrower. So I was like, maybe I should just go learn some better wheel throwing skills. But the teaching is learning for me, how to articulate, how to do something that my hands naturally do.
00:20:35
Speaker
put it into verbal words to get it across has been such an awesome exercise for me. And I think that in the story of my practice right now, I'm in a very good spot to share what I've learned. I'm ready to pass on some of what I know how to do so that I can absorb some new stuff and focus in a new direction. So it's kind of like, I'm ready to give it out.
00:21:01
Speaker
so that I can pick up something new, learn some new stuff. I love that. ShapeNation, share your knowledge about pottery. Share it with the world so that you can grow as a potter yourself. I love that. So something I found interesting on your website is you have something called the Build Your Own Cave Basket. Can you tell me more about this? Thank you.
Customization in Pottery
00:21:23
Speaker
So if I'm from, you know, the mall era, I was born in the eighties. So I think of this as the build a bear version of my, my website, where you pick the shape, you pick the pattern, you pick the clay color and how much glaze you want on it. And then I make it to order. I make these baskets all the time. I'm pretty consistent. So like, I know I can handle the lead time that I have built into the design your own, but from a,
00:21:53
Speaker
logistical standpoint it's impossible for me to have all the options and so this just gives
00:22:00
Speaker
It gives my mind a break. It gives my studio inventory area a break, and customers can tell me what they have. And they also can match things to their collection. So I love the idea of starting small and adding. And so I want my clients to be able to tap back in when they're ready to add a new piece, but still be in the same kind of clay colors and build up
00:22:29
Speaker
The Build a Bear, you know, DIY cape basket will probably hang out for a while, even as I transition into new work, just so that there's that that kind of tag to the history of the past. So now you mentioned that you are transitioning into new work. Can you tell me more about that? I mean,
00:22:49
Speaker
I am just like deeply in my bones ready for some new stuff. And so I'm pushing my own coil construction. You know, I teach it every week now on repeat and coils, you know, I really, I'm looking into just some different shapes and, you know, I, I'm not going to deviate too far because I love the components that I'm already creating, but I want to start employing them in new ways.
00:23:18
Speaker
I love that. So let's talk about discovering your voice. Can you tell me about the moment when you knew you were heading the right direction with your pottery? Oh, I think that I think that I feel
00:23:31
Speaker
like I'm on the right road or on the right beach. Every time someone tells me that it calms them down, looking at my work, calms them down, makes them feel like they're outside. They remember a place where they were when they found this stick or that stone. And so I think every interaction I have presently all the way back to the beginning is a little tiny little, you know, bit of validation or confidence that I'm on the right path.
00:24:02
Speaker
When I was graduating from the College of Creative Studies, I did have my senior show. I worked very hard at it. I was given a beautiful room. I filled it with hundreds of items from wood to clay to cardboard. I got to use all the things I wanted to use. And that show was snapped up pretty much the opening night.
00:24:26
Speaker
That was pretty, and I've never had that sense. So, you know, that it's not like, oh wow, this is the norm. I make all this work and everyone just buys everything, but it made it obviously possible. And it was exciting, you know, it, it obviously is, it didn't say, okay, I had a great one sold out show and my career was all dialed in and figured out like absolutely not, but it was encouraging.
00:24:55
Speaker
I love that. So now you like to think your pottery journey has been serpentine. Can you tell me more about this? Absolutely. I guess like all the best board games and stuff, you start at the beginning and you end up at the end eventually, but you're gathering all of this information as you go. So I'm just kind of a bit of a nerd. I love school. So I loved K through 12. I was in every class. And then out in the Rockies,
00:25:25
Speaker
I gathered a lot of life lessons. I learned the physical geology side of life. I took some math and science.
00:25:33
Speaker
Basically how to be a college student interior design taught me how to draft taught me space planning taught me how people move through spaces. And it also showed me, you know, parts of it that I wasn't going to like as a career CAD shopping for couches and fabrics and things like that weren't going to be my interest, but that's okay. Like the more I know, right? Like.
00:25:56
Speaker
I stuck my nose down that alley and I learned what I needed to learn. I had beautiful instructors along the way kind of be like, hey, this might be a better avenue for you. I see you're interested. You're showing up. You're present. But maybe, you know, I had the woman, I had a very good friend still of mine help me leave the interior design program, build a portfolio and get into the College of Creative Studies.
00:26:23
Speaker
And so, you know, those kinds of people show up if you're looking for them, right? The lessons will appear when you're ready to learn them. So I think that's what I mean in terms of serpentine. I can appreciate all of the cards I get to add to my deck or all the tools in my belt now because I've stopped over here and I've stopped over there. And a younger version of myself may have thought that I was wasting time or it doesn't make sense, but I would say probably four or five years ago, I dawned on me that this all makes sense.
00:26:52
Speaker
And you have to, like, this is part of paying your dues, you know, when they say it takes 10 years to be an overnight success. That's 10 years of trying stuff, hunting and, you know, figuring out where you fit in and how you want to apply yourself and, you know, not hurt yourself or sacrifice yourself. We're trying to, you know, thrive, not just survive. So. Absolutely. I love that. Shaping Nation.
00:27:18
Speaker
Every lesson you learn, whether it's outside pottery or in pottery, it's just another thing adding to your deck and adding to your repertoire to make better pottery or make your journey a little bit better. I love that. So now,
Finding Joy in Pottery
00:27:32
Speaker
can you tell me what do you think it means to find your own pottery voice?
00:27:36
Speaker
Oh, I think pottery is a vehicle for expressing your voice. And so if you can, I've done a fair amount of reading about establishing habits or even finding your own creative voice. There's so many books out there with beautiful pieces of insight and anecdotes. But if you can remember what you loved when you were four, five, six before
00:28:01
Speaker
popularity was a thing before you even knew what money was. If you were out karate chopping across your yard all the time, or you had the best collection of dolls, or you're all about dancing, and you can figure out how that joy, so I think that's some of your really innate joy. That's where some of that stuff comes from. And if you can get quiet in this modern day life of being a busy adult,
00:28:28
Speaker
and figure out where some of your joy comes from and then bring that into your clay practice, you are never going to be bored. I love collecting rocks and sticks and stones. My clay brings me that feeling every day. And I do not hesitate coming to my clay table, to my studio. I show up.
00:28:54
Speaker
every day pretty willing and pretty open hearted to keep going and see what we can uncover. I love that. That was so amazing. Now, what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own unique voice with their pottery? I think that they should look at lots of different kinds of arts. They should, you know, don't just try to, you know, you can mimic someone, but you need to own what you're doing as well. So I think you need to be
00:29:23
Speaker
a pretty open sponge in reading, podcasts, music, color, and then also just try to dial into that early primitive joy, that innate joy you had when you were a kid, and figure out what you can say or do about it now, that you can articulate more clearly, that you can control more variables, and present that to the world. It's gonna resonate with some people and not with others. We're not target, right?
00:29:53
Speaker
You're not supposed to be liked by everyone, especially if you're trying to say something that's worth saying. Absolutely. That was some excellent advice right there. Katie, it has been great times today. And as we're coming to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer home with my audience today? Just continue to play. I come around it as a form of meditation, but if play is a part of your process, you're going to be okay.
00:30:20
Speaker
Absolutely. Some excellent parting words of advice. Katie, it has been a great challenge today. Where can my audience go and learn more about you? Thank you, Nick. It was awesome talking to you. You can find me at www.KatieBramlage.com or on Instagram at underscore K A T I E B R A M L A G E underscore. No Facebook for me. Keep the web presence pretty minimal, but I would love to have a chat. Reach out if you have any questions.
00:30:49
Speaker
Hey thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. If you want to discover how close you are to actually discovering your own unique voice with your pottery, I put together a free 4 question quiz. It's very short. It takes 30 seconds for you to take. If you want to know how close you are to finding your own unique voice, go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash quiz or you can simply go to shapingyourpottery.com and it will be right there at the top.
00:31:18
Speaker
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I'll see you guys next time.