Maureen Karlstad

Pottery
www.piercehill.art
​​​​​​​Instagram; facebook

I love the way it feels when I get the clay wet and move my hands over its smooth surface.  I love being able to move the clay into a calm and centered place.  I love pushing down into the centered mound and then pulling the clay outward into the walls of a bowl or mug.  I love being able to make a shape with as few pulls as possible, so that the finished piece has a sense of freshness about it, with the finger marks still in it from the pulling.   I love making the same shape over and over again.  

Each time I make a particular shape I am trying again for perfection—I may make 50 bowls but only one will have that elusive sense of perfection, or maybe none of them will. But all of them come close in one way or another, and they become beautiful and useful in their own ways.