Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lesley Bevan | Episode 994
Lesley Bevan is an artist and voice over actor currently living in Chicago, IL. Lesley received a BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and enjoyed a career in theatre, TV and film, regionally and internationally, for over 20 years. Lesley took her first pottery class in 1999, while a resident actor at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. For years Lesley chased two passions, clay by day and theatre by night, sometimes smuggling work into her dressing room to slip-trail pots during intermission. Lesley clearly remembers the matinee when she found herself onstage performing Lady MacBeth’s “Out Damned Spot” speech in front of an audience of 500 people while simultaneously working out the design for a new mug in her head. It was a moment of clarity. By 2015, Leslie had committed to a full time career in clay. Today, Lesley is a studio artist at Lillstreet Art Center, where she creates her own work and fires the soda kiln for a robust soda firing program.
SPONSORS
You can help support the show!
GRPotteryForms.com
Number 1 brand in America for a reason. Skutt.com
For all your ceramic needs go to Georgies.com
How long does it take you to make your average mug?
I don’t know how long it takes in a day but I would say I could make at best 12 in a week, over several days. So I make six at a time over two days and the rest of the decorating happens in the next five or six days.
What does your average making week look like?
Do you mean how I spend my time?
Yes. Exactly.
So when I am at my best I throw for two days and then come in and decorate for two days. And at the end of those days I throw a little more for the next day so something is always ready to be decorated.
Does that mean you make towards specific inventory?
I tend to work in waves so I will try to make only mugs for a week and then shift to something else because I find that I get into the rhythm and they get better as I continue. I would say I try to work in waves of different products.
Has your style changed over the years?
Yes, so I discovered slip trailing and then never looked back but in the beginning the slip trailing was really more Mehndi inspired, like Indian, Pakistani, Henna drawing and at some point I realized that wasn’t my culture and I felt uncomfortable using those images and so I tried to shift it to something that was more me. And I feel like I have done that successfully.
What is your favorite thing to make?
Mugs is the easy answer. But the form I love making is throwing something upside-down and I can turn that into a planter, so it’s upside-down and ends up in a tip or I can turn it into candle plateau holder which I am currently making. I turn it into bird houses. I keep coming back to that form.
Book
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Contact
Instagram: @lesleybevanceramics