It seems appropriate to me that they would have pottery lessons at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival.  Clay is like a book, it has a memory and records the movements of my hands as I work it.  Before paper man used clay to record their records.  I am excited to be teaching pottery over the next two days at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival.  I hope all of you have as great a day as I plan to!

– Jerel

It’s time for me to get behind the wheel again.  I have been separated from my dear friend for so long.  Too many lame excuses to not be out in the sweltering heat of the studio, there is other work to be done, one reason after another to not be out working.  I am losing my sanity and need some time behind the wheel, feeling the sweet sensation of the clay sliding between my fingers soothing and calming to bring it back; it is one of the few things in this world that I have some semblance of control over.  I hope the muscles in my fingers and arms can remember the motions, I know my brain does.  It is like riding a bicycle right?  While my typing skills have improved dramatically as of late, I need to exercise the other half of my brain.  Working is clay is one of the best stress managers that I know of.  Some exercise, others clean, some nap, I work clay.  I love the smell that wafts out of a freshly opened bag, the deep rich earthy scents that speak of eons of history contained in my hands.  The uniquely malleable substance that is waiting to give dimension, depth, volume, form to the visions in my head.  It is time for me to return to my love.  Don’t you want to come and join me?

I have a few pieces of green ware patiently waiting for me to get my kiln finished so I can start firing them and treating their surfaces with vitreous engobes.  I had an assignment from one of my teachers this past spring to work in a series and he wanted me to work in clay since that was my strength, which is funny to me because I was in an interpretive drawing class at the time.  After many hours of doodling in my sketchbook I started to notice a pattern to my madness and settled into doing Kiln Gods.  In my line of work no matter what preparations are made, there is still a lot left up to chance.  We prepare our work to the best of our ability, and try to control the firing process as much as possible, but in the end there are some things out of our control, in a way it is analogous to life and there comes a time in life when we have to say that we have done all that we can do and place the rest into the hands of a higher power.  For me that is what the Kiln Gods represent.  They have been used by potters the world round to watch over their firings and help them get through the process with the best possible results as then can.  The ones that I sculpted are not modeled after any specific cultures existing Kiln Gods, but are symbolic to me or my interpretation of what I think may be important to the culture that influenced them.  Part of me hesitates to share this work in progress, but I want to share something with you that I have been working on recently: