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Elizabeth Krome

Morningside Pottery – stoneware and porcelain – Carrboro

This is one in a series of posts about artists in the Orange County Artists Guild.

Do you have formal training in your medium? Or are you self taught?

My college degree in urban studies was a good preparation for the career in journalism that I expected — but for my 50-plus years in clay, not so much. Soon after graduation, while using my editing skills at the Harvard Observatory, I took a pottery class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. I fell in love with clay right away. When the astrophysicists cut the entire editing department, I recognized that losing my job was a great opportunity. I knew my next job had to be part-time so I could spend a lot more time with clay.

Being self-taught means that nobody is warning you about all the things you shouldn’t do, and the trial-and-error path is full of wrong turns and blind alleys. While making abundant errors among the trials, I was also lucky to attend two significant summer workshops: one with Cynthia Bringle, and one with Mick Casson. These two potters taught me so much about working with clay – good cylinders, good handles, good bowls – but more important, they shaped my idea of a life in clay, and they showed me how to teach well.

Do you have a hobby that intersects with your art? How?

I take a month-long break from clay every summer to run the kitchen at Shiloh Quaker Camp, a kids’ camp in the Virginia Blue Ridge. My work in the pottery studio is largely solitary, and camp is extremely social, with 100 people to feed and six to eight people to cook for them. It’s a bit like my clay work in that there is a cycle with a beginning, an end, and a product. But unlike the clay work, this is a team effort.

Tell us about your work space or studio.

I am so happy to tell you about my studio space! It is not large but it feels spacious, and everyone’s first comment about it is, “Wow, the light in here!” My studio is a recent addition to our house. Before its completion I spent five years in studio limbo – first commuting weekly back to my large studio in Virginia, and later working in a small room at the back of our house. It’s the eleventh time I’ve set up a working space, and all the lessons of the first ten informed the design of this one. I was lucky to have an architect (Jenny Hoffman of West End Building) who listened closely to what I needed for workflow and then designed a beautiful space around it. I am happy every time I walk into it.

Studio photo by Cat Wilborne

What could people expect to see at your studio during the OCAG Studio Tour?

My studio will be full of finished pots, with more on the porch. When it’s not too busy, I will be demonstrating bowls as I prepare for the next Empty Bowls event. And I hope you’ll enjoy my home-made pecan-topped cheese biscuits.

Do you have a favorite quote?

This passage by Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching* speaks directly to me:
We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel.
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel.
But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house.
But it is on these and the spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore, just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not.
* Arthur Waley’s translation

Does your work support a cause that you are passionate about?

I’ve donated pots to more silent auctions for non-profits than I could ever count, but the enduring cause I support is Empty Bowls. I’ve been donating bowls to these projects in multiple places for more than 25 years. An Empty Bowls event brings together three of my abiding interests: food, clay, and community. I am exceedingly fortunate that my work is making pots, and it’s right to share that good fortune by helping keep food on the table for a family that is struggling. I try to get a few bowls in every kiln firing so I have them ready when someone calls.

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