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Growing up in
Raleigh, NC, I spent a great deal of time outdoors slogging
through the red clay of the piedmont. My mother was a
ceramist (but still did not like my red clay coated clothes)
and a painter, and my father a wood worker and a painter in
his own right. It was with Mom that I had my first “real”
clay experience.
After high
school, I was off to Western Carolina University where I
completed my BFA in 1974. At WCU, I had no idea about being a
potter… but there was that fateful day in Ceramics I class,
and it all fell into place. Then it was off to East Carolina
University where I completed my MFA in Ceramics.
While at ECU,
we did a lot of kiln construction because we were moving into
the new school of art building. It was a great time to be at
ECU. While there, I was the Graduate Teaching Fellow in
Ceramics and taught adult pottery at the Wilson Technical
Institute. While working on my minor in glass at WCU in 1975,
I was the Ceramics studio assistant there as well.
Somewhere
about 1978 though, I ran out of clay… Oh, I never put it down,
just never fired anything… made things and slurry bucketed’
them many times. Making a long story short, (I was working
in the yacht building business, boy scouts, soccer club, etc.)
the next thing I knew it was 2003. It was time to start clay
again.
So what about
my work? It is a process, a continually changing process.
It took a while for me to write and publish my thesis. Why?
Because I was seeking a justification for what I created,
and I was constantly changing directions and focus. Through
this day, it seems ideas come from everywhere and from
nowhere… Oh, and I listen to the voices in my head so to speak
and it’s off to the studio.
Firing
method for my work… ever since I started potting, I have been
a pyromaniac... I mean a wood fire potter. We were wood
firing back in the day when it was still a novelty or
something only done in traditional settings or in Japan. Was
it always the results? No, it was mostly the process, the
human energy required, and the bringing together of fire,
earth, water and air. And in this mix seeking something that
surprises the senses.
As previously
noted, we potter’s can be a philosophical bunch. I do most of
my work on the wheel, and we expound about centering clay and
oneself in life. Admittedly centering is good for clay and
people as it helps us to find our focus, our center which
breeds harmony and symmetry in clay and life, or life with
clay. But once centered, it is good sometimes to induce a
little wobble, just to keep things interesting.
Currently I
work and teach out of my studio, Pumpkin Creek Pottery in
Castle Hayne, NC. We have a wood fueled kiln, a couple
smaller gas fired barrel kilns and this summer plan to build a
small salt / soda kiln. We hope to have a website up by
this summer too. Meanwhile, please visit the Coastal
Carolina Clay Guild
website for our schedule of kiln firings
and openings… and join the guild if you have not already.
I
sell most of my work locally and am also represented in some
private collections in the United States of America, Norway,
Italy, England, and China. My current direction is carving reliefs into various surfaces with abstract motifs, and with
my love of the sea, there is going to be a fish of some sort
in there somewhere.
Dick
Heiser
Pumpkin Creek Pottery
3820 Worthdale Dr
Castle Hayne, NC 28429
910-228-9704 |
