A Serious Teacher And A Serious Artist | Ingrid Chase

Ingrid Chase | Episode 989

Roanoke-based high school art teacher and potter, Ingrid Chase creates one-of-a-kind functional pieces. Inspired by her handmade bisque stamps, Ingrid embraces the freedom of working intuitively to develop complex surfaces rich in their visual and tactile nature.

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Do you have go to glazes that you tend to grab first?

Probably my two favorite glazes right now are a Coyote plum shino and there’s actually a glaze I mix myself called Transparent Bird that’s kind of a folk art white that I use a lot.

You have so much detail on your work. How much time do you invest in a typical cup?

I would say at least three hours. It’s hard to tell because I work on so many at the same time but that would be my rough estimate.

As a full time teacher how do you make room in your schedule for studio time?

My studio is in my basement and my son also has a little work area there as well so we go down in the evenings together and I make art and he plays.

Do you see yourself more as a crafter or as an artist?

I see myself more as an artist. Each cup or mug piece that I make I approach purely intuitively so I look at each one really as a unique work of art. I never repeat the same design.

Does that mean that a crafter is someone who does repeat work?

That’s a great question. I feel like to become a super skilled craftsperson there is a lot of repetition and refinement of the process, maybe not the piece. So the emphasis is on maybe the functionality. Where I feel like I want my pieces to function well but ultimately I am more focused on the surface and the aesthetics of it. Not that craftspeople do not. I do not mean to say that.