Tales from Turtle Woman Ceramic Studio: Prologue

I am a ceramist living on Milwaukee's Lower East Side. I make relatively small figurative, narrative pieces. For years I worked in a small pantry, but we needed a powder room on the first floor. Now I work in the kitchen. I first began working in clay on February 2, 1982. I made a small coil pot in the shape of a snake and inside I etched the word : ”Hiss-tory.” And it was….an historic moment for me. In recent years, our kitchen table has doubled as work space for my ceramic creations and my culinary masterpieces. When the sculpting process is completed, I must make a rather precarious trip balancing the green clay sculpture in my arms as I descend into the basement to my kilns. Often I have wished for a real work place—what Virginia Woolf referred to as “a room of one’s own.” Now, through thrift, perseverance, and some luck, at last my studio is going to become a reality.

I have decided to document the progress of my studio, which I’m tentatively calling Turtle Woman Ceramic Studio, as it literally materializes. I will try to upload pictures, as well, but it might take me a while to get the process figured out. This is the eve of the beginning of the work. Tomorrow marks the demolition of a small shed with basement access at the rear of our house. Next week the foundation cement work will be done.  The following week--the week of August 30, will herald the beginning of the actual construction. So the tale begins. I am hoping the story will spin smoothly, like a well-centered hunk of clay, “at the still point in the turning world….”

August 20, 2010
DWRZ