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Catie Webster | Episode 690

Catie Webster is a potter and public high school art teacher. Catie is driven to make Art that you want to pick up, use, and enjoy Catie’s art serves a purpose, has a function, and looks beautiful in your home. Catie is inspired by nature and the colors of New Hampshire landscapes.

EPISODE 700 SMALL VICTORIES
Tell me about your small victories you learned from The Potters Cast. Tell us your name, Instagram Handle, and website. (I may steal a photo off one of your feeds for the show notes page)

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I am going to give you some quotes and I would love for you to give your feedback on them. The first quote is from John Steinbeck. He said, I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. What do you think about that?

I think I agree with that statement. I definitely believe that teaching is an art. I think that someone can hold a lot of knowledge but it takes a certain person to be able to share that. Not just share it and just deliver it but to have that other person who’s receiving that information, who’s receiving that content, that knowledge, and be able to apply it. But not just in a really basic way but to truly take it on themselves and then become inquisitive and curious and transform that knowledge into something else and just continue with it. Yeah, that’s a beautiful quote. I love that.

Albert Einstein said, It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. 

That’s another great one. Wow. That’s something that I try to do every day in my classroom with my students, is to create joy through the learning experience. That’s really what I am trying to do here. I always tell my students, Forget about the clay, the clay doesn’t matter. I want you to problem solve. I want you to seek out answers to your questions. I want you to try and surpass these speed bumps in the road of life. I want you to just do all the things to become a better person and a better human, a better person in society, and just to be happy. 

Picasso said and I think this is so apropos for today’s world because we have so much dust that is clogging our noses and our eyes and ears. He said, Art washes away from the soul the dust of the every day life. 

I experience that in my own life. And I know that to be true and as I stated pretty early on in the conversation I specifically this school year told my administration, My students will be working with clay at home. My fully remote students, my hybrid students, all of them. Because now is the time that they need it the most. They need to be able to create, they need to be able to express themselves. They need to be able to have a project and to feel proud. And you know, art can take your mind off things, even if it is temporary, even if it’s just for the moment, it’s still important.

Georgia O’Keeffe said, I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way. Things I had no words for. How do you teach students to express with their art things that they can’t say with their lips?

First, that is one of my favorite quotes. It gives me some goosebumps right there. So before students dive into a project we take some time to look at professional artist’s work and they do a little bit of a just a simple google image search. So many of them don’t know the wide array of art that is out there. They have maybe never been to a museum. So we do a little bit of research and then I have them sit down with paper and a pencil and I always have them sketch as many ideas as possible. And for some of them that could be ten ideas and that process of sketching can sometimes be more important than the actual making of the project for some of them. And to able to get their ideas and their thoughts down on paper. As the quote said, some of these thoughts and ideas can’t be put into words.

Edgar Degas said, Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see. How do we do that with students? Can they really help see the world differently with their art?

I think it’s totally possible. Have I personally seen it in my own classroom? I am not sure but I think that at any age a person could make an impact on how we view the world. I think any person, any scenario, we have that power and a young person has that power.

Henry Adams said, A teacher affect eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. How have you seen that played out?

First being a student myself I have had teachers that have made life long impacts and some of them are from high school and some are more of a collegiate level, but I myself have carried some of these experiences and interactions with various teachers throughout my life. And I hope that I make some sort of impact with my students. I hope one day they are randomly doing something and they think of my and they say, Oh, What would Ms. Webster do! Or, Remember that time in that class? As they are talking to a friend. I hope I make that sort of an impact. If I don’t I hope they are at least having fun in the moment while they are in my classroom and at least experiencing clay or just art in general. But I hope that I do make more of a lifetime impact.

The last quote is, Forget collecting letters for after your name, but rather leave solutions in your path. Paul Blais. (laughter) 

I love it. (laughter)

What do you think of a life that’s built around that?

I think that is exactly what I have been kind of talking about. You know, we don’t necessarily need accolades or a pat on the back or a cookie for all the great things that we have done.

Book

Surface Design fir ceramics by Maureen Mills 

Contact

Etsy: crwdesignsshop

Instagram: @crw_designs