The wheel thing Potter’s creativity kindled by the nature around her The Creators
By: AV Kitching Posted: 6:00 AM CDT Friday, Mar. 29, 2024

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This article was published 29/03/2024 (527 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pottery came relatively late to Megan Morin. She’d always thought of herself as a “crafty kind of person” but had never considered taking to the potter’s wheel until her boyfriend encouraged her to enrol in a class in 2019.

Two rounds of classes later and Morin discovered she had a knack for working with clay. Before she knew it, her creations were being snapped up by friends and family members.

Today Morin’s Wild Woods Pottery pieces are for sale at markets across the province.

Her studio, tucked into the oaks on her farm property, is where she spends most of her days, crafting everything from mugs and garden bells to soap dishes, vases and wind chimes.

She’s just started making miniature apothecary bottle necklaces, tiny ceramic receptacles with a cork, hung on adjustable waxed-cotton cord, for those who like their pottery wearable.

“I find a lot of inspiration from my property. I do lots of woods-inspired pottery, there are lots of acorns from the oaks… This spring I have been pulled towards more wildlife-themed pottery and I have started a collection which I call Shed, based on the shed antlers from deer which my dog finds on the property,” she says.

It’s a very different scenario to her previous life.

Morin, 38, was an early educator, a position she gave up due to workplace stress. She then trained to drive a school bus, and was quite happy to do that alongside her pottery, until the pull of the wheel — and the desire of interested buyers — took over.

Morin is excited about the changing of the seasons and the days getting lighter earlier. For someone who wakes up at 5 a.m. and wants to get going immediately, the long winter nights have been a challenge.

“Spring, summer and fall are my favourite times to work. I can have the windows open, I can listen to the birds as I make pottery, I can feel the breeze through the windows as I make my art,” she says.

Her dream is to make a full set of tableware for herself but it’s a time-consuming task and right now the artist has her hands full, literally.

Pottery is a labour-intensive process.

First she has to weigh out the wet stoneware clay — she always starts with the same amount when making mugs — which she then throws on the wheel, moulding each piece from memory.

Morin doesn’t sketch anything out or prepare drawings for reference.

As she holds the thought of the piece’s shape in her mind, Morin’s fingers deftly work the clay, transforming the earthy, wet material into vessels.

Her creations dry overnight, resting under the cover of plastic, before the excess clay is shaved or trimmed off.

Then Morin stamps her maker’s mark on the bottom of each mug. This is also when she affixes handles, before a further drying process.

“Depending on outside temperatures it can take up to two weeks to dry a mug,” she says.

“You want to dry mugs very slowly. The body dries at a different rate to the handle. It’s all in the handle; if you dry it too fast, the handle will crack. There is a whole science to it.”

The pieces are twice-fired in the kiln. The first firing at bisque temperature is a whopping 1,050 C. Once the kiln has cooled down, she swiftly unloads the mugs before applying a food-safe glaze.

She then loads them back into the kiln for the final blazing at 1,200 C, which further transforms the material, turning clay to ceramic.

Each handmade piece is unique; she doesn’t strive to make every mug the same.

“That’s not the kind of artist I am. Some potters will smash and remake things if they are all not exactly alike. But I am not like that.”

However, she admits rather ruefully, the more she creates, the better she gets at making things look more uniform.

“But that’s not one of my goals,” she laughs. “For me pottery should be more natural and flowing. Not all the same.”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca