Hi!  I’m Trish Egan.  It’s really nice to meet you!

I have a wonderful home life, a husband who is the love of my life, and three great dogs.  I have been a soldier, a teacher and an actor, in many guises for all, for a long time.  And now I find myself at the beginning of a new chapter as a pottery artist.

Why pottery?  The last few years have brought lots of changes, for most if not all of us. I was feeling a bit adrift and was channel surfing during a sleepless night when I happened upon The Great Pottery Throwdown .  I was intrigued, and quickly that turned to captivated.  “I’m a really tactile person,” I thought. “I think I’d really love the feeling of the clay in my hands.” It took some research but I finally found a class at what has become my home away from home, Morning Ceramics Studio in Portland, Oregon.  It’s a great place with lots of potters, and there’s a real sense of community there.

Making pottery has helped me find a kind of creativity I hadn’t harnessed before.  When I was young, the only “ART” classes available to me were drawing and painting, and I could do neither. I spent decades thinking I had no options or ability that were “artistic” (other than acting, a different kind of craft.) It’s been such a wonderful discovery that I am creative, that I have pictures in my head that are waiting to be born into clay. The sense of excitement and joy is pervasive, and I hope it never goes away!

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that throwing at the wheel wasn’t a good fit with a cranky back, and so I was reborn as a handbuilder! My pottery is one of a kind.  I don’t make two of the exact same thing.  I often don’t know what a project will be until I get the clay in my hands and IT tells ME what it wants to be.  I give a fair amount to friends and family, sell when folks want to buy and occasionally make work on commission. Making loads of money has never been the primary goal, though.  It’s about the process for me, about that whispered communication between the lovely clay and my inner muse.  I take pride in what I make, regardless of how flawed it may be.  If someone shares my joy about a piece, we have a discussion about the worth of the piece, in their eyes and mine, and often that leads to a meeting of the minds and a price is agreed upon.  We’ll see how that works, but that’s where I am in the “what is your pottery worth” process.

I talked your ear off (or maybe eyes out? hard to know the right term in a visual medium) so now go look at pottery, mine or someone else’s. Think about the hours (many many) it takes to make a single ceramic piece;  knowledge and technique (and frankly, luck) are needed for that piece to survive the steps involved in its creation. Thank the powers that be that we have artists and their art in our lives, for they create joy, and thoughtfulness, and so many other things that we should not have to live without.