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Christopher Watt | Episode 789
Christopher Watt is a studio potter and educator specializing in the atmospheric-firing processes of salt-glazing and wood-firing. Currently based in Montana, Christopher’s work involves the production of wheel-thrown forms, preparation of local glaze materials and the resulting material evidence of the making and firing processes. Christopher was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, USA, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax, Nova, Scotia, Canada and a three-year diploma in Art, Craft and Design from Kootenay School of the Arts at Selkirk College in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.
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Why is it important to you to be a learner?
Good question. I think I owe a lot to mentors and teachers in the past and them just influencing me and creating that thirst, that hunger for developing your work. And the other thing I think is the process, for myself, it keeps kind of pushing me. There’s one thing I am envisioning and I might be lucky enough to reach it to some level. It’s very different how it comes to shape than what it is in my mind and then at that point I think, Okay, what can I do with this? Maybe I will try something different. And so there is that kind of internal, innate, desire to keep pushing forward. That’s what motivates me in the studio.
How does being exposed to great pots elevate your thinking and approach to ceramics?
I think one thing about seeing those great pots early on…prior to that for the most part it was like Ceramics Monthly and a little bit online, things like that, but you know, pots are tactile objects so to actually see them and handle them in the real…and also they are three dimensional objects and to see them in the world not as printed matter but actual objects really can change how we see and sense those objects. So the value of seeing those pots working with great makers , going to museums and galleries, I just think there’s huge influence in all of that.
Is it helpful for your creativity to use quality pots yourself? I ask that because you said you had a cup collection.
Oh yeah. I think using cups is so educational. You know, going back to how did the handle feel? What is the weight of the object? What is the diameter? and all these things. Obviously it’s subjective as far as what one thinks is pleasing or not but I think so much of those decisions come from using pots. I remember when I was younger not having very many cups and as I was lucky enough to be able to start buying cups and using cups and visiting teachers and mentors homes and using cups there, they really started influencing my work. I started to recognize which cups I was gravitating towards.
Do you find being around people that are like-minded makes a difference in how well you learn or how you go about your learning?
That’s an interesting pedagogical question on teaching. I think it can go both ways to be honest. I think a mentor or an environment that is really on the same page can be wonderful and there is an ease to it in a way and growth can come from that. But at the same time thinking back to other places I’ve been where some of the lessons I’ve learned from individuals, they were tough ones and it’s because they showed me things I wasn’t familiar with yet or it wasn’t kind of my process. Learning new things isn’t always easy so I kind of grew from that experience even though maybe in the moment it wasn’t the easiest.
Is it important to be around people who aren’t like-minded who think so differently from you?
I think so. Yeah. We learn from that and I think you know, we are in an interesting time in this part of the world. We just moves from Massachusetts to a small town in Montana and they are different worlds and I think you can definitively grow and learn from environments that you feel are different from what you are, culturally and people who make up the place and you can definitely grow from that. When I moved from Vancouver, B.C. to Logan, Utah I went through that and it was really fruitful.
Book
Salt-Glaze Ceramics by Rosemary Cochrane
Contact
Instagram: @christopher.watt.ceramics