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Ian Childers | Episode 499
Originally from Philadelphia, PA, Ian Childers is an Associate Professor of Ceramics at MUW in Columbus, MS. Ian has been working with crystalline glazes since 2005 and has shown his work both internationally and nationally. In June/July 2016 Ian was a featured artist in Pottery Making Illustrated magazine showcasing his crystalline glazes.
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I noticed that you have a few collaborations going on. Why do you do collaborations?
Mostly because I like hanging out with other people. That is really all it is. For me, I have a hard time collaborating with people. I have done a couple of collaborative shows and a residency two years ago which was all about collaboration. I struggle with that because my work has two very specific parts. There is the form, which is highly refined, almost foundational work. It is meant to be a perfect canvas for my glaze. Then there is the glaze which is its own beast and covers the entire form. So when I blend with someone else, they get one or the other. It’s hard to do both, but it is fun to fight into that.
Why do you collect so many pots?
I don’t know. I love work. My house is covered in work. Most of them because it is a story. I like stories. I live in the middle of nowhere, my friends are all far away. Having a friend’s cup next to me is kind of my way of sharing face with people who don’t get to visit. Also, I teach with every piece I have. My students come to my house and we do tea or lemonade. This is Mississippi, it’s hot, we are not drinking hot tea in the middle of summer. I bring my students here and they all have to choose a piece, and we sit and drink from the piece and then we critique it and talk about why they made those decisions and what about that piece drew them to it. A lot of the time they don’t know. When you hold a mug and you’ve got a mug in your hand, there is a whole different experience than looking at a picture.
How do you do both your job and your pottery with passion?
Sometimes that is a struggle. I have debated building my studio at my house, even though I live literally 200 yards from my ceramic building. It is right now the street, but sometimes that separation could be nice. Yeah, teaching, I love. Sometimes I wish the students would give me a little breathing room but that is not the point of me being there. The only reason I am ever on that campus is as a servant to students. So I try to be their professor 24/7. Making my own work requires navigating that. I have to keep a pretty strict schedule to get my work done. I started a thing where I don’t watch TV at all at home. I only watch it on the computer in my studio. So if I want to watch TV, I sit at my wheel and throw and watch a show. It forces me to be in the studio.
You’ve got a lot of work behind you on the wall there. Will you trade pots with just about anybody?
Yes and no. I like the idea of trading. Sometimes I get somebody who wants to trade a pot and I think, That is a turd. I hate saying that to somebody because sometimes I am trading up and others have better pots than me. But lately I have been pretty lucky to be really busy and last year at NCECA I had twenty people that wanted to trade but I didn’t have any free work. I maybe had five pots that I brought that I could trade people. That’s my problem. I don’t always have the work. When I make it it goes to one of the galleries. Pretty much everything I make goes somewhere because I am not putting 40 hours a week into making pots. I try my darnedest, but it just doesn’t always happen. In my process I lose a lot, probably 7 out of 10 pots easy.
You said earlier if when you were 18 someone would have told you that you were going to be a potter and teaching pottery that you would have punched them in the face. What would make you want to punch someone in the face today?
Nothing. I am an absolute pacifist. Well, no, if you hurt my dog I would probably get pretty aggressive. I love my dog. But for the most part I got in a lot of fist fights as a kid, I see what is going on in politics nowadays and people putting hard lines in the ground and none of it works. I tried fighting as a kid, it never solved anything. Ever. It just made things worse. It didn’t make any positive change. So nowadays, nothing, I’ve got no reason to punch anybody.
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Contact:
Instagram: @ianchilders