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Mike Griffin | Episode 802
Mike Griffin is a “self taught” potter who is working on making it a full time job. In the summers Mike is a golf professional and runs a very busy golf course so he doesn’t get to make pots half of the year. I truly enjoy getting lost in the making process and the studio and just allowing the pots to make themselves and come from instinct and reaction to the clay.
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What is the biggest challenge you have in your role as a ceramic artist and trying to fulfil shows that you have coming up and getting things out to the gallery, what’s your biggest challenge playing this role and how are you going to overcome it?
That’s a great question. I have been listening to your podcast ever since you sent me the invite. I have listened to as many as I could which is really cool, I found a lot of people through that as a matter of fact. You know, I’d listen to someone and think, Oh what a cool person and I would find their Instagram and follow them. I’m getting off subject. My biggest challenge would be time, obviously, but I’m really lucky to have a great wife who is a great mother and she is just a powerhouse of a woman. She runs her own business. She lets me go to the studio, when I say I gotta go to the studio. She says, go ahead. Yeah, I owe it all to her.
If you had an extra 10 thousand dollars a year would you be so inclined to chase down the other jobs you do to make life work?
You mean if I had more money would I be just a pottery?
Yes.
I would love to be just a potter. It’s really what I love to do. Golf is something that I am good at. I like being around people. I like teaching people, but there is to me, there’s no other freedom or happy space that I have found than creative stuff in clay. It’s just a whole nother release, I think. So yeah, absolutely.
What is one of the best resources you have in order to keep developing your creativity?
Well just the whole potter’s community. I think potters in general are really cool, fun people that share with each other. It’s very rare that you…I mean I could send a message to a potter, Hey, how did you make that red? And they would say, Oh, Here’s my recipe. Most of them will. It is very rare that you will find one that won’t tell you. And you know, Instagram and the internet, if I am at a loss of what to make I can just scroll through Instagram of all these great potters that I follow and I see a form that inspires me and I get an idea and I just start making pieces and it kicks back into gear.
You have been doing this for over ten years, what one habit you wish you would have started earlier that you do now?
As far as habits I wish I would have started handbuilding a lot longer ago, I think. I don’t know, I think I just started taking it a little more seriously a couple of years ago because I started getting more followers and actual people were saying, You make great stuff. You know there’s that old, every artist has it, when you make something and someone goes, Wow, that’s good. And your first thought is , Nah, it’s not really that good. No, I wish it was a little different than that. So there’s always that negative underlying feeling when you make stuff that you really don’t like it.
What is one question you wish I would have asked you?
I would say, What’s your next step? Like what are you going to do next?
What are you going to do next? (laughter)
(laughter) You know, I don’t know. I’m really kind of just letting it all happen. I think getting more people acknowledging my work and liking my pots and jut kind of letting it run it’s course as an artist is working. And I don’t like to mess with things when they work. So I am just going to keep making what I make and I can feel the ebb and flows in the work. I can feel it changing. When you get an idea and you start to go with it, you know when you can’t sleep at night, when you are just thinking I gotta do this, this, this, and this. That’s just the fun of it. So I am just excited for what comes next and I don’t know what it is.
Book
Terra Sigillata by Rhonda Willers
Contact
Etsy: griffinpots
Instagram: @mike_griffin_ceramics