An Episode on Handbuilders | Maryan & Dan Pelland | Episode 419

Maryan & Dan Pelland | Episode 419

Maryan Pelland is a former professional writer. She went over to the clay side six years ago and never turned back. She and husband/partner, Dan, a photographer/engineer, make work in their home studio, work in a community studio, and publish an online magazine for potters, Handbuilders Monthly.

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Why clay for you?

Dan: I have time on my hands. I an retired now. It is a great opportunity for me to connect with Maryanne.

Maryanne I need a space in my head where it is calm and quiet and creative and this is the first art form that I have worked at that I did not feel alien to it. The day I sat down and started doing this I felt like Where have I been all my life? Why did I not discover this decades ago? It is just exactly right for me.

Maryanne, do you see any crossover with the creative writing process and the creative process of making clay?

I see some real differences because when I work with with clay it is my hands doing the process, it’s muscle memory and things like that. So my brain is free to grow calm and not do very much while my hands interact with this earth. When I write I had to focus so intensely with my brain and you have to drag words and theories and concepts out, it gets very very, very tiring. I think the crossover is when you are working with mud you still have the opportunity to create concepts and express a thought or an idea in the work you are doing but it is such a totally different form and process.

Dan where do you find your source of creativity?

I am an engineer by trade and I try to push myself to be creative. So many people I know are either one or the other. They are either into hardware or they are into art but I like to bring the two together.

You mentioned that the point of Hand Builders Monthly is to give a voice. Why is it important for the hand building community to have a stronger voice?

Maryanne: It is the way humankind began making pots. A project I did last year is I looked up an example of some of the first pottery ever done by humans and I built one of those pots. You use jute and ropes and it was really fun to get in touch with the decoration. But hand building is how man started to provide jewelry and containers. It was the first technology. Anyone who is interested in carrying those skills into the twenty first century where technology is mind boggling, I think those people should have a voice.

Dan: The internet has kind of democratized media and there is a lot more of it out there now then there ever has been before. The reading I have done about ceramics and pottery is a lot more information about throwing pots and I think it’s nice to have something that is focused on a smaller part of the craft.

How often does Hand Builders Monthly produce content?

Maryanne: When Maryanne feels like it. We began it with a schedule and as I so often do I set too large of a task for myself and it was becoming a chore and I was starting to think I won’t continue this because Dan and I are into a lot of things. We are busy all the time. It was becoming too much for me and the quality could slack off. So probably twice a month I will sit down and get some ideas going. I will put together 3 to 5 pieces and put them out there. It is a free flowing thing.