Clay Times Flashback: 20 Years in Print
BY POLLY BEACH
T
wenty years ago last spring
I woke up with an idea that
seemed to have popped up
from out of nowhere: “The world
needs a more down-to-earth magazine for potters,” I thought.
“But wait — I think I have the skills
needed, so maybe I should be the
one to publish the magazine?”
Back then, I’d been making a lot of
claywork in my home studio while
raising my young kids and working
as a freelance graphic designer and
editor. Having discovered a love for
pottery in my senior year at WVU,
I’d only taken a couple of clay classes before graduation. By the time I
received my BS in Journalism, I still
hadn’t ever mixed a glaze or fired
a kiln.
I thought he was crazy! How was
I going to manage to do claywork
in our tiny little sunroom? By
this time I’d become the busy
mother of Cody & Josh, our two
young boys, and co-publisher of
a local tourist guide. I explained
to Jim that to do pottery, I would
also need access to glazes and
a kiln, and I knew of no one in
our rural community who had
such things.
But that didn’t faze Jim and
he had rekindled the fire. He
knew that the simple process of
throwing clay on the wheel was
something that I loved by itself,
kiln or no kiln. I resumed wheelthrowing practice ... but regardless, I was now on a mission!
CLAYTIMES·COM n 20TH ANNIVERSARY • AUTUMN / WINTER 2015
The original monthly newsletter* (above) premiered
in March, 1995, and focused on everything from the
basics of wheel-throwing, handbuilding, and glaze
I spent the next few years trying
mixing, to pottery business marketing and craft show
to meet other potters. At every
Having relocated to Virginia dur- set-up. Claytime Companion readers offered enough
Cruets and Vase Set by Shana Salaff, Ft. Collins, CO. Porcelain; cone 6 oxidation.crafts
6" x 20" xfestival
4".
we attended, I
ing the months following gradu- enthusiastic support and encouragement after rewould seek them out and ask
ation, I did enroll in a pottery ceipt of 10 issues to spawn production of our first
their advice. Eventually, I found
class at the nearest community color magazine. It debuted as Clay Times (below) in
December, 1995. *[Back issue PDFs of the original
out where I could pay to have
college (although it was almost an newsletters, designed for beginning and intermediate
my work fired (albeit a ceramics
hour’s drive from home). Thanks potters, are now available online at www.claytimes.com]
14
to [recently retired] Bill Schran
[Congratulations, Bill!], I was able
to continue my clay practice there,
and latched on to some new techniques for two quarter semesters.
But soon the “real world” took over,
and I found myself working fulltime outside the home, and then
back at home juggling work with
raising kids. My preoccupation
with clay fell to the back burner.
Fast-forward seven years to my
28th birthday, when my husband,
Jim, surprised me with the gift
of a potter’s wheel and a lump of
clay, accompanied by my old slurry
bucket and clay tools from the
college days.
mold studio with paint-on glazes
from little jars). Then one day
someone told me I should subscribe to a ceramics magazine to
learn where to get pottery supplies and equipment.
So I subscribed. And read. And
discovered that I needed more
information than I could get
from that magazine. It was above
my level — too technical, and focused on “ceramics” as opposed
to “pottery.”
Meanwhile, Jim and I built a
new home on 17 acres out in
the middle of nowhere, and
we now had room for a new
(expensive) kiln. To me, buying