Apprentice’s blog

My two years as an apprentice at Mary Fox Pottery has come to a close and like a young fledgling, I am ready to fly the nest! The year 2024 marks the launch of my own pottery studio, just around the corner from Mary’s in Ladysmith. As I set out on my journey, and watch as Sabrina, Mary’s new apprentice, begins her first week, I can’t help but think back on the journey I’ve had from my first day to now. There were of course ups and downs, but overall, I can’t imagine where I would be had I not have had this experience. 

The apprenticeship, born from the Mary Fox Legacy Project, afforded me the opportunity to focus on my craft without the distraction of needing to make a living outside of the program. As the apprenticeship is paid, and full-time, I was able to spend countless hours developing my skills as a potter. Other distractions are inescapable – relationships, money, the state of the world – but I often felt cocooned from it all. The apprenticeship required focus and problem-solving, meaning external troubles were often left at the door. 

Throughout my time at the pottery, I encountered obstacles and learned lessons that I will carry through to my own practice in the “real world”. One of the most important being not to overwork myself and take breaks. Being a potter is a really physical job, a fact I really under-estimated. I quickly discovered that Injuries can happen in a moment but take months, even years to fully recover from. 

I learned to pace myself and focus on a steady, consistent practice so as to reduce the need to overwork during busy seasons. I put a lot of pressure on myself early on in the apprenticeship to produce work as quickly as possible. But making quality work is more important! And speed comes in time with practice and skill. Life is not a race, and it’s just pottery! 

Some lessons I learned and forgot, and learned again… such as pots can never dry too slowly! When in doubt, just cover them to dry slowly so you don’t arrive at the studio to a bunch of s-cracks and cracked handles. 

Finally, I learned to make a pretty mean cappuccino! A skill I plan to continue to practice as I take advantage of Mary’s espresso machine, conveniently located not a block away from my new studio. 

As I write this, I feel excitement and trepidation for my journey ahead, but above all, I feel gratitude. Gratitude for the experience I’ve gained over the past couple of years; for the support system I’ve been fortunate enough to build on this little island; for my family who have supported all my endeavors through the years and taught me I can do anything I set my mind to; and for Mary Fox. For taking me under her wing and helping this young potter learn to fly. 

This year has been a whirlwind, with the most exciting news being chosen for Mary’s 2024 apprenticeship! The year started off slow, just returning to my office job after surgery. I was gifted a membership to The Clay Warehouse from my partner for Christmas which I was eager to use after several years of not working with the medium. It was like riding a bike, I quickly picked up where I left off years ago and hit the ground running.

Not too long after this, I was offered a teaching position and the studio quickly became my second home. After teaching for a short period, my mom returned from a trip to the island and said she had an early birthday present for me. She had visited Mary Fox and brought me back one of her mugs and a copy of her book. My mom raved about her time there, Mary’s apprenticeship program and excitedly told me to apply. It sounded too good to be true, so much so I almost didn’t apply! Over the next two weeks it was all I could think about, I went back and forth as to whether I should reach out. After sitting on it for two long weeks, and some encouragement from my partner I finally worked up the courage to send Mary an email, after all what did I have to lose! 

I was nervous writing my email, not wanting to waste Mary’s time. What if I wasn’t qualified enough? What if she never replied? I spent the next few weeks thinking this was the case, my nerves started to fade as I settled into the idea that I wasn’t a good fit. It had been almost three weeks. I was still checking my email multiple times a day, which is not something I was in the habit of doing, so a small part of me must have still been holding out hope. 

Mary had replied! I was overwhelmed with emotion. After composing myself, I prepared a reference and compiled some photos of my work. She was prompt to get back to me and asked to schedule an in person interview in Ladysmith. I spent the next long month not so patiently waiting to visit Mary, telling only a few people who needed to know about my interview trying to limit my excitement and contain my doubt.

All of my worries quickly dissipated when I met Mary and her apprentice Sarah. They put me at ease as we spent the next few hours talking about what the following few years would look like if I were to be accepted. We discussed the things I’d get to learn, the commitment it would take, and the reality of me moving to the island. The conversation was coming to a close and I was just thinking about how happy I was to have gotten an interview when Mary uttered the words: “So, I’d like to offer you the apprenticeship.” I couldn’t tell you the words that preceded that or the ones that followed as I blankly stared at Mary. It took everything in me not to cry or ask are you sure? I was beside myself and lost for words, I had prepared myself for every outcome except this one. I was filled with joy and I couldn’t wait to tell my family and friends my news. This came as a surprise to most but was met with nothing but excitement and support. 

This opportunity is something 10 year old me could have never imagined when making my first pinch pot. My journey as a potter began at a young age learning the basics of hand building quickly followed by my first throwing class, where I instantly fell in love. Like Mary, most of my experience was through highschool. Followed by a few classes at the local art gallery after I graduated. From my first teachers Clive Tucker and Mike McElgunn to the newer ones, the learning will never end and it’s the reason the pottery community is so unique. The support from potters like Courtney Brewer, Scott Pierce and Anisa Etemadi (among other greats), continues to add to my confidence as I navigate through this vast industry.

This year has brought about so much change and I can’t wait to see what the next few years has to offer, eager to take in every minute I spend learning from Mary. Developing a style, creating a cohesive line of work, and experimenting with glazes are a few, of a long list of things I am looking forward to. For now, finishing her book, watching her videos and taking advantage of my last little bit of studio time is all I can do to prepare! I have butterflies writing this as it’s becoming more real. The next few months will go by in a heartbeat and very soon I will be a small island potter giving you an update on her crazy two years. 

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.

 

I’m three months into my apprenticeship at Mary Fox Pottery and boy have I been busy! I’m learning a lot and while I feel at times like I’m taking one step forward and two steps back, in the grand scheme of things I know my skills are improving. Most young potters (and even the older ones) will tell you they have good potting days and bad ones. It’s easy to focus on the bad ones and feel like you aren’t making progress, but practice is still progress!  

So, on the matter of progress… January saw me conquer the heart bowl! After weeks of repetition, including one afternoon where I got carried away in my “creative zone” and ended up with some rather droopy apple-shaped hearts, Mary stepped into the creation room and looked over my latest batch of bowls. The moment I had waited for.  

“I wouldn’t know these were not made by me. Good job!” she said. The thrill of hearing those words! I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Working on the heart bowls has also given me the opportunity to practice throwing off the hump—a technique of throwing small pieces one after the other from a mound of clay on the wheel. This method is starting to feel more natural to me than it did a few months ago and it is a much faster way of throwing the small bowl forms that are later shaped into hearts.  

Following the success of the heart bowls, I began on mugs. The cup forms—in a variety of shapes and sizes—were coming along quite nicely but trying to pull a handle as good as a Mary Fox handle was frustrating to say the least. In demo after demo, she made it look so easy. After almost two months of practicing, I’m still not quite there but I am seeing gradual progress and don’t get nearly as stressed out by the process as I once did.  

Seeing my frustration with how the handles were not turning out as I wanted, Mary gave me another  form to work on to mix it up a bit. I began making her “small bowls” and “manly bowls”. And recently I’ve been working on plates—many potters’ least favorite thing to throw. For me, throwing them is the fun part. When it comes to trimming them, however, well that’s a different story.  

The main takeaways from my first few months include firstly realizing how difficult it is to emulate the subtleties of another potter’s work, particularly when that work is by someone who has been potting as long as Mary Fox. Secondly, I’m learning how easy it is for external factors that impact my mood to affect my work. I’ve always known this, it’s just more obvious now that I’m at the wheel more often and can’t step away like I could when potting was a hobby. Thirdly, it’s more clear than ever how important core strength and proper body mechanics are in this field, particularly for those planning a long career as a potter.  

Till next time,  

Sarah