One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – A Year in the Life of a Potter’s Apprentice

I can hardly believe a year has passed since I set foot in Mary Fox’s studio as her first pottery apprentice. Four hundred and sixteen mugs, 207 cups, 190 heart bowls, 221 bowls, 118 plates, 12 pitchers, 20 vases, 6 honey pots and 9 utensil holders later, I’ve written “Fox 22” on the bottom of a trimmed foot for the last time. (Apprentices sign “Fox followed by the year on the bottom of each of Mary’s forms that they recreate. That way, people can look up the year to see which apprentice made their pot.) After tallying up all the pots I’ve made since my first day at the pottery (a record I’ve kept because Mary drilled into me the importance of taking notes), I find myself reflecting on the year just passed, imagining what my life might have looked like had I not become Mary Fox’s apprentice, and looking forward to the year ahead.

I started potting in 2019, and it was much harder than I anticipated. All the professionals in the youtube videos made it look so easy! An analogy Mary herself uses in her book, My Life as a Potter, is that throwing on the wheel is like learning to play a musical instrument. It requires repetition, repetition, repetition, and the practice I would need to progress to the level I wanted in a timeframe that would satisfy my impatience wasn’t going to be possible in Vancouver. Finding a cost-effective place to pot with access to equipment and materials, not to mention the time needed to dedicate to the craft when having to work full time, was proving impossible. During a google search for pottery opportunities in BC, I stumbled across Mary Fox and her Legacy Project, an initiative whereby her studio and gallery will be transformed into an artist residency program once she is no longer using it. “What an amazing opportunity for future potters!” I thought, but this didn’t help my current predicament. Mary’s Legacy Project sat in my brain for a few months until a friend gave me a nudge to contact her and ask about an apprenticeship. The answer to my initial call was “no” since Mary already had a glaze assistant, but not five minutes later, she called back asking for some photos of my work! I recall frantically running around my apartment collecting any pots I could find and photographing them on a coffee table on my balcony––not the most professional looking portfolio shots but I had to make do! My amateur charm worked and following a meeting at Mary’s studio and gallery in Ladysmith, the apprenticeship program was born! Thrilled, I began planning a move to Vancouver Island with my partner and two cats to begin work with Mary in January 2022. It was to be a two-year, traditional program in which the first year would be dedicated exclusively to replicating Mary’s tableware. During the second year, some time would be allocated for me to work on my own body of work while still producing Mary’s wares, with the goal that I would have a line of work ready to launch for production when the apprenticeship ended.

When I started out as an apprentice, I lacked the ability to make consistent work to the standard I wanted to achieve. I began by recreating Fox’s heart bowls and, for the first time, had to really focus and pay attention to every detail of the form. I recall every time Mary walked into the creation room, I would blush and forget how to throw, though I’m sure she never noticed. My first heart bowls had heavy bottoms, and some looked a bit more like odd-shaped apples than hearts. The second form I worked on was mugs, and I knew what that involved—handles! Pre apprenticeship, I had made only around 20 pulled handles (formed by attaching clay to the body of the mug and pulling it into a handle shape), and none very successful, so I knew this was going to be a challenge. Right up to a few weeks ago, something still wasn’t quite right with the handles I was producing. Totally frustrated, I spent an afternoon comparing my hand shape to Mary’s and focusing on every single pull motion before I realized what I was doing wrong. This really drilled home to me the importance of mindfulness and concentrating on every movement.

A year later, the pots I’m producing are more consistent than before, and while I have my off days, they are less frequent. I’ve noticed changes in my attitude as well. Up until a few months ago, I would give myself such a hard time for not getting a form perfect on the first couple of tries. More recently, I’ve been kinder to myself, knowing that the more I practise the closer I will get to the goal I’m trying to achieve. When you are learning to throw, it often feels like you take one step forward and two steps back. From the handle experience, I now know that when the backward steps happen, it’s important to focus on the details and remember to practise mindfulness. I find this attention can slip away without you even noticing until you look at the pots you threw the day before and think, “Hmm, that’s not what I thought those looked like.”

Now as I look forward to the year ahead, I can hardly believe I’ll be starting on my own body of work! A year ago I was facing 365 days of working exclusively on Mary’s forms and I hadn’t given much thought to my own work. But a few weeks ago I began sketching designs and presented my finished drawings to Mary and now I’ve started on my own mugs! After producing Mary’s tableware forms for a year, throwing and trimming to her specifications, working differently will take some getting used to. Trying to figure out how to trim a foot that was different from hers almost broke my little brain! And remember those Fox handles I struggled with for so long? Now my hands can’t seem to pull anything different. That’s certainly not a bad thing, but I’m reminded it will take time for my own style and voice to develop naturally.

When I was younger, I couldn’t stick with anything. If I was bad at an instrument after a few tries (which of course I was, as are most people), I would give up in frustration. I’m grateful I found pottery at the age of 28 as I don’t know if I would have stuck it out if I had tried it earlier. In fact I almost packed it in after my fourth class but after a gentle nudge from my partner I persevered. With a bit more self-awareness, I’ve been able to check my ego after the initial shock of realizing how much I had to learn. This truly is a craft for life that involves continuous learning and growing. I can’t wait to experience it all, but I want to make sure I savour every moment along the way.