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Sean Scott | Episode 552
Sean Scott is a ceramic artist who specializes in hand built functional pottery. Scott, originally from Dayton, Ohio, earned his BFA from Ohio University and his MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He currently lives in rural Battle Lake, Minnesota where he operates Pomme de Terre Pottery.
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Could you define bliss for us?
I suppose bliss would be a general idea of a direction or an attraction or a focus. I think it really ties into the idea of muse. I know artists refer a lot to their muse, but again it is more internal, intuitive, I would say it is a little bit more tied in to emotions or gut or a visceral response verses a cerebral or rational thing. Like sometimes I don’t think following your bliss would make a lot of sense to your parents. If your kid says, I am just gunna follow my bliss, you are going to say, Well son… So I don’t think it is a rational thing and it feels very intuitive. Empathetic maybe, it has some empathy in there.
Is it selfish?
I don’t think it has to be. I mean, I make my pots for other people. I make them for myself right off, but ultimately when they are done I want them out. I want them to go find a home and go do their business with somebody else. These are for somebody else to enjoy. In a way you could say, Sean, you are being selfish making a tea pot that takes a thousand bazillion hours, and I could say, Man, this teapot is for somebody else. I know when I make them I want them to go to somebody else and for them to live some where out in the world and I want people to take from it. So ultimately I feel like it is for somebody else.
Is it risky to be a bliss follower?
I think it is, yes. And you know, I took a lot of risks as a youth, a young crazy guy experimenting with everything in the world including, let’s be a potter. I mean, how risky is that in our culture. I find myself when I do kids’ workshops or classes I find myself telling people about this follow your bliss thing, and I do preface it with, You know this isn’t for everybody. It’s not going to be easy, there is going to be a lot of unknown variables and it takes a certain self knowledge or stability to be able to fling yourself out there to bliss. And I believe for me stability is feeling like I know who I am pretty well and knowing my parents did a pretty good job of raising me in a stable environment. I believe my youth, being pretty stable as it was, allowed for me to throw myself to the wind a little, because of that stability. So I have my parents to thank for that stability.
How does forgetting what other people think of you come into play with following your bliss?
It’s a delicate balance. And I find as I get older and I have heard people say this before that they kind of care less what people think, and I feel like, I will be fifty this year, and I am getting to the point where I just really don’t care. Which is kind of a nice place to be really. I used to care more about what people thought.If people know me and I feel entrusted with them and they are my friends or close family members, I listen to them. I listen to what they have to say. I may throw it out the window after I listen to what they have to say, but I at least am going to listen to them. But you are right, I just applied to some show, and I got rejected of course, you know we all know what that is like, and these people were relevant people somewhere in the ceramics field, but you have to dismiss it and move on. It’s like a short memory, let it run off your back, be present, be in the moment and take care of what you can kind of thing and take care of your business. That is were my energy needs to be, is in taking care of my business.
Does it mean instant success?
Well, and what is success, right? We all define that differently. Some people would say success is having a waiting list on tea pots and back orders. You know some times those good luck bad luck things are all mixed up. There are a lot of little supranational stories about bad luck and good luck being all mixed up and I think there is a lot of truth to that. So you say success, man I look around and I am healthy and my family is healthy and we have a decent home and a decent studio and we have a garden growing and you know, life is good. No matter if I don’t make any money at all this year, life is good.
How important is being comfortable with being uncomfortable as a potter?
I think you have to be uncomfortable. As an artist, as a human being, if you are going to grow, I think you have to push yourself into areas that are painful or comfortable. I mean that is how you grow, that is your edge. And we can often get so habitual about our lives that you have to shake it up. And sometimes even arbitrarily shaking things up. Giving yourself a project that just doesn’t make sense. Some times for me that would be a commission where I am like, Oh this lady, she’s designing these plates and I’ve got to make them and she’s going to ruin these things. And then I make them I am like, Hey, I grew . I saw something and she was kind of right and even though they are not what I would normally make you have to find a way to push the edges.
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Instagram: @seanscottclay