Decades Doing Clay | John Tilton | Episode 956

John Tilton | Episode 956

John Tilton was a graduate student working toward a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Florida when he was introduced to clay as an artistic medium in 1968. John subsequently took up Ceramics as a profession, earning his M.F.A. in Ceramics from the University of South Florida in 1972. John has gone on to teach classes in Mathematics at the University of Florida and in Ceramics at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, FL. John has been an independent studio artist since 1972. In 1978, he moved into a spiritual community, where he and his wife, Anne, still live and maintain their studio.

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Do you have a favorite time when you worked with clay? Perhaps it’s now.

I think now, because every day I get happier. So I think now is my favorite time.

Who is your favorite potter?

I guess I would have to say Hans Coper, but I could say so many other people. He didn’t make crystalline glazes but he’s probably one of my favorite potters of all time. I got to study with David Shaner in Utah for ten days in 1974 and he was certainly a major influence too.

When you get out your clay have you already decided what that piece is going to be?

Yes, but it doesn’t always end up looking like what I thought it would. I know what I am going to try to make.

Do you have a working schedule for how the week is going to go? Like throw on Monday, trim on Tuesday, that kind of thing?

No I don’t, I just try to just feel it. But no I don’t know how it is exactly going to go. Although now that I am using Instagram, it’s like well, I need to do something that I can post about. So that becomes my schedule kind of.

What new skill are you working on?

I would love to be able to throw like some of the people that I see throwing. And it probably isn’t going to happen. Jose Mariscal on Instagram is just a marvelous thrower. There’s several people on there that just have really incredible throwing skills and I would like to have incredible throwing skills. And there’s a lot of things I am working to get better every day. That’s just how I am.

Do you see a retirement on the horizon?

I don’t. I think I just make pots until I can’t. You know, I fell in love with it in a very early time. And I just feel that as long as I can make pots, I just love it. It opens things up, I think it probably keeps me healthy and happy.