Blackhills Entry 4: Ways of Working

I’ve worked as an academic researcher for over seven years and I’ve been making pottery for the last two and a half years. Before my two weeks at Blackhills, I had kept my experience as a researcher quite distinct from my pottery. I had a sense that I wanted to bring something from my research experience into my pottery somehow, but I couldn’t pinpoint what this was or what it would look like. My background is in psychology and now I work as an applied health scientist. The application of this sort of science to pottery isn’t as apparent as the connection might be for a chemist or a geologist.

While planning and conducting the triaxial and line-blend glaze tests, I realized how important a methodical approach was for doing these tests well. I had to plan carefully, deciding which factors to hold constant between the tests, measure precisely, and I had to carefully record everything I did. By using this approach, we were able to make valid comparisons between tests, and importantly we knew exactly what it was we were comparing. It was the perfect way for me to see how I could bring a systematic and methodical way of working into my pottery.

I work and think naturally in this way – and up until now I’ve not approached my pottery like this. I’ve tended to approach it more loosely, driven by what I feel like doing at the time. I think the sweet spot for me will be to blend these two ways of working: using a systematic approach to researching materials so that I can ultimately use them in a creative and expressive way.