Wesley Smith
My journey in clay began my junior year of high school, on the south cumberland plateau in Sewanee, TN. It was at Saint-Andrews Sewanee school where I learned to make pots, and fell in love with them. At The University of the South, I was challenged to reconsider my work in a more academic context, while independently pursuing my craft. More recently, I spent three years apprenticing under Joseph Sand, a woodfiring master, and former apprentice of Mark Hewitt, just outside of Seagrove, NC. During my time in Seagrove I had the opportunity to work and fire with various wonderful, and several world-renowned artists including Mark, Daniel Johnston, and David Stuempfle. I lived in a cabin at the Sand pottery, threw thousands of pots, and slowly developed my sense of aesthetics and knowledge of wood-firing kilns and wild clays.
My work is driven by a love for both hand crafted objects and an intimacy with the natural resources and beautiful landscapes from which they’re sourced and crafted. I love to think that thoughtfully made functional pots have the potential to serve as a gentle weekly, if not daily, reminder of where all the things we consume come from. Perhaps such reminders have the power to make us pause and question, or even challenge these relationships when we know them to be problematic.
Kim Ellington, a master potter from Catawba Valley, NC, said that the beauty of our craft is to take something from the Earth, and to lovingly give it back as something new: a new junction between human ingenuity and the innately wondrous qualities of Earth. This union is the ever present motivation behind my work, and the quality I hope it evokes when used to pour a glass of iced tea, house the basil plant on the porch, or take a sip of coffee.
Wesley Everett Smith (WES)