MoonRiver Pottery and Ceramics
“pottery for the soul”
“Sailing a Moon River and making pottery are soulful, poetic experiences.”
“MoonRiver Pottery and Ceramics, A Soulful & Poetic Ceramic Process in Kansas City metro,.” Sounds nice doesn’t it? Well, it is for me. As you visit these pages, perhaps you will get a feel for what I’m talking about and experience the contentment and simple peace I receive making pots and clay objects.
People ask me questions about the web site, the pots, the clay, the potters, or the process of forming clay. Often, they want to know how they can obtain MoonRiver Pottery products. Many want to understand what is so “soulful” about ceramics, anyway?
Below, I address these and other good questions about MoonRiver Pottery and Ceramics
Pottery has never been my day job, which makes a significant difference in how and when I approach my work in the studio. A professional, production potter or ceramic artist has pressures I never have or will have. Work in my studio is very therapeutic and I find I am increasingly obsessed with it, so I must need lots of therapy. Semi-retirement helps me to feel free to make ceramic pots and other clay objects at my leisure without putting the burden of providing a living on it.
I collected and appreciated ceramics long before I ever threw a pot. Pottery themes in general have long attracted me. A favorite religious song from long ago is “Earthen Vessels,” a song by John Foley SJ based on 2 Corinthians 4:7. Clay, and pots in general, carry spiritual va
lue and connotations.
I am particularly fascinated by white objects of clay made by human hands.
The question of what is so soulful about pottery I answer with words from the Tao Te Ching. This saying below has long hung in my studio:
WITH A WALL ALL AROUND A CLAY BOWL IS MOLDED;
BUT THE USE OF THE BOWL
WILL DEPEND ON THE PART OF THE BOWL THAT IS VOID.SO ADVANTAGE IS HAD FROM WHATEVER IS THERE;
BUT USEFULNESS RISES FROM WHATEVER IS NOT.
The most soulful objects, notions or endeavors are always useful in the fullness of time: MoonRiver Pottery and Ceramics
Clay Objects and Tools: Earth, Fire, eventually the Wheel
Hand building is the most ancient way of shaping and forming clay objects. Firing pots has a very long history, widely done between 6000 to 4000 BC in many civilizations, including African, Asian and Native American.
Centering clay on a wheel and making pots that way evolved, as did the use of more complex tools, with the development of civilizations and the human brain. There are many tools in a pottery studio, some small, some large, but the most important are your hands.
Hands form space and bring into existence something new on the earth, never seen exactly the same before.
Pottery is meant to be touched. I encourage touching, holding and using MoonRiver Pottery. Now, I use exclusively a special white porcelain clay which is quite buttery feeling in its wet form. It has taken me time and patient practice to learn to work with it and to touch it in creative ways.
MoonRiver Pottery and Ceramics Sales & Availability
Improvement comes with practice making pots. I have limited storage in my studio and home. You can help me move my pots out so I can have the space to make more by using any of the several outlets listed below where you will find MoonRiver Pottery available. (We donate 10% of proceeds to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital)
- By appointment at my home studio Pam Anderson, phone 915-568-3734
- MoonRiver Pottery Open House/Charity event by arrangement
- ButtonWood Art Space, 3031 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64108
- Market to Market
715 Bay Street Beaufort, SC 29902 - By special order and consignment. Call 913-568-3734 or email.
- Trunk Shows (call for dates and locations)
MoonRiver Potters
Pam Anderson -Potter, Founder
Amy Major – Ceramic Artist, Director of Process Art Education
Pam Meyers– Ceramic Artist, Naturalist, Art Director
Erik Larsen – Contributing Potter
Paul Anderson– Ceramic/Mixed Media, wood & bone (folk-art)
Addy Batz – Ceramic Artist, Student Resident
Courtenay Hammond – Guest Artist
MoonRiver Pottery and Ceramics is an Arts Partnership
Photo by Martha Smith