Reflections from 2023 Kira Fournier Scholarship Recipient Maureen Mills
/When I found out I received the Kira Fournier Scholarship to attend the North Country Studio Workshop with Chris Staley this past January, I cried. I knew Kira and Ben and worked closely with them at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen for years. Our professional and personal relationships meant a great deal to me, and I felt like this opportunity was a very special way to honor that.
I have attended NCSW a number of times, and every time it helped me think through my own work and take time to explore a new idea. That happened very differently this time.
A large part of the experience were the participants in this year’s wheel workshop with Chris Staley. Everyone participated at a very high level of professionalism, whether they were potters, or teachers, or designers. While most participants had a high level of skill with clay, even that didn’t matter. Everyone participated on a level playing field, because it was more than a workshop about just making.
Nearly every participant was there for the same reason, to share the time with Chris Staley. His reputation as a thinker and a maker preceded him, and while we all watched him work through some demonstrations, we also did drawing exercises together, did writing exercises together, shared readings, worked on the wheel together, shared in collaborations too. Everyone at one point or another shared their vulnerabilities. Every day exposed something new and even raw in each of us. Tears of emotion were shed and shared regularly, by each of us in turn, including Chris.
I don’t think a single one of us came to the workshop just to see how Chris did something on the wheel. He did work on and off the wheel and shared his philosophies, and we watched and listened; it was meaningful to each of us individually and as a group.
On the last day of the workshop, Chris gave a gift of a small porcelain bowl to each of us. Mine was a simple hemispherical bowl with a thick satin finish in a pale blue celadon. We were, again, all moved to tears by the generosity and thoughtfulness of the gift. I returned home with my bowl and went about daily living with it on the kitchen table. Some days I filled it with fruit, some days with candy. Every day I picked it up, held it, examined it, and enjoyed its shape, color, texture, brightness; in short, every single thing about it. I was taken with its simplicity and elegance, and I knew it had more to say to me.
One day after lunch I said out loud to my husband, “Oh my gosh, I know what I have to do! I need to do my text and texture work in porcelain!” The clarity I experienced in this realization is something I did not expect. And upon considering more about why this felt so right, I realized that for me, working with porcelain would be diametrically opposed to my current stoneware work from a wood kiln.
I surprised myself to have come to this conclusion; I have resisted working in porcelain because it is fussy and requires a particular kind of attention that stoneware doesn’t. While my stoneware work has focused on layers of pattern and even color, what interests me is doing my text and texture work in porcelain is allowing the process and not the material to dictate where the work goes. Allowing for thick or irregular forms and working toward soft finishes is where I can begin to embrace porcelain.
I’ve learned not to put too much pressure on myself during a workshop, to allow for the experience to unfold at its own pace. My experience that week was unmatched by other experiences, and it will remain with me, and in my work, and continue to unfold.
You can find Maureen’s work at https://www.sliptrail.com/ and on instagram.
Photos by Maureen Mills
