Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Samantha Hostert | Episode 751
Samantha (Sam) Haster is a potter and educator, originally from Wisconsin and is now living in the Chicago area. Sam makes functional, comfortable, soda-fired pots that she hopes will inspire users to more fully engage with the conversations and interactions of everyday life.
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
(Talking about Cups and Conversations) Why was it important to have that kind of connection with people?
I think some of it came, honestly, from a kind of selfish desire of what I wanted for myself. When I was thinking about the event I was thinking about an event that I would have wanted to go to. I think connection with others is so important and conversation is one of the best ways that we can have that connection and deepen connections with other people and after moving a couple of times to anew city and also becoming a new mom and quitting my job and transitioning jobs, there were a lot of times in my life when I felt it was very difficult to find places to meet people and have conversations like this and find people to make connections with. I also wanted to inspire people to slow down with the handmade pottery and kind of connect the pots to the idea of slowing down and connecting.
Is this something that is best to plan and organize with other people?
Yes. Definitely. I have some friends who I ran the idea by and people were very helpful in terms of planning and helping with the event. Then that also is a way for me to have more connections and be working with other people. That’s another thing, I love making pots but it is very isolating, as you mentioned, so the teaching is a way to have that collaboration and interaction and this is another way to do that.
When you were gathering questions, what kind of questions did you get? Were you always looking for open ended questions?
You can actually see a bunch of them. My Covid iteration of Cups and Conversation was March through June. I did via Instagram, 100 days, 100 conversations. and every day for 100 days straight I posted a question or conversation starter. And just encouraging and reminding people, when you can’t really be face-to-face, to still try to at least call someone or have this conversation with yourself. And most of them are open-ended, yes. But they are not too….they are not political, they are not meant to start any one debating, they are more like…What would you change about your life in one year if fear were not an issue? What brings you delight?
Did you have planning meeting to put this all together?
For the events I did have a couple of informal meetings, yes. Before Covid I was about to try to bring this to maybe to a larger scale, like maybe do it with NCECA and I had some planning meetings set and then everything shut down.
How did you spread the word for the event?
That’s a good question. I put some posters around the art center where I work and brought a couple over to the restaurant where it was. And I also had post cards made with the time and date of the event and on the back a little statement about what is important about conversation. I think I asked a couple of local coffee shops if I could set some out where they had some other flyers and advertisements.
How far in advance did you start spreading the word?
I would say three weeks about and maybe I wished I could have done it a little earlier.
On the day of the event, what percentage of the people were your friends and what percentage of them were strangers?
I definitely knew a good amount of them. I would say some of them were my students or people who I knew but were not necessarily my close friends. A few people were absolutely were my close friends and then there was a tier of people that I know, but weren’t close friends, and there was a whole tier of strangers also. A lot of them probably coming via those two channels so in terms of just complete strangers finding the flyer, I am not sure how many I got, but definitely a lot of people who did not know each other coming in. I felt like a very open inviting space for people coming in and not knowing anyone.
Did you walk away from your own event having met new people and do you still know them today?
Yes! I did meet new people. They are people that I have now had a connection through Little Street, like maybe they were a student there who I had never met before, but I have reason to see them. I would like to do more events and hopefully come away with even deeper connection or more consistency, but yes, there are people that I met that I still know today.
Book
Contact
Instagram: @shostert