From mud to mindfulness: The therapeutic benefits of pottery
Pottery show competitors on how the craft helped them emotionally heal and channel anxiety
Displayed in the living room of Andrew McCullough's grandmother's home is a ceramic platter with a screened print portrait of his uncle who tragically died in a drunk driving accident when McCullough was very young. His uncle has a slight smile in the image and an air of knowing, like he has a great secret to tell. Every Christmas, the family places a Santa hat on the art piece, remembering his playful nature.
McCullough made the platter as a gift to his mother and grandmother to honour his uncle's memory. He doesn't consider the piece to be the most visually striking or artistically accomplished, but it is the most meaningful ceramic art he's made.
And McCullough has made plenty over the years. The 32-year-old Frederiction-based potter and The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down competitor discovered pottery in college and instantly connected with the medium.
Holding emotions through clay
Working with clay can be a therapeutic experience for many people. For those working on the wheel, the practice quite literally begins with "centring" before anything can be built. It's a visceral, hands-on craft that involves complete immersion — focused attention to the present moment and attunement to the malleability of the clay. From potter's wheel to kiln, the clay requires one to hold it with tender care, as one might similarly hold challenging emotions experienced throughout life.
And then to work with these emotions, like a potter shaping (or in potter terms, throwing) the clay.
Many art therapists incorporate the use of clay in art therapy for a variety of purposes, including promoting mindfulness and healing from trauma. In working with this tactile element, clients can transform their pain and reconnect with their sense of agency, connection with self and their strengths.
McCullough's journey from ceramics student to nationally recognized potter hasn't been linear, though. There were a few years where he spent very little time working with clay.
"I had some unfortunate circumstances that came about and I kind of went downward," McCullough shares. The traumatic experience caused him to turn away from pottery because of its connections to painful memories.
Reclaiming identity through clay
During that time, he went back to university to earn two degrees, where he explored other art mediums and gained a deeper understanding of culture in arts. This allowed him to start approaching pottery in a new way. "I think I was able to use my knowledge of storytelling and culture to kind of create my own story for pottery that made it okay for me again…I had to recreate my relationship with clay." Instead of making pieces the way others had told him to, he created his own art form and found new methods of self-expression.
From potter's wheel to kiln, the clay requires one to hold it, with tender care, as one might similarly hold challenging emotions experienced throughout life.
"Reclaiming pottery allowed me to make it for myself," he says. The metaphor is not lost on him; the parallels of reclaiming clay as a process in pottery, and reclaiming the art form for himself. And this reclamation helped strengthen his identity.
Working with clay can be profoundly grounding and encourage a deeper understanding of self. It can also be a practice in patience, in letting go of perfectionism and acceptance because the art form has a steep learning curve and it takes time to hone the skills.
Jackie Talmey-Lennon, 39-year-old Vancouver resident and The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down competitor was initially intimidated by ceramics when she first dabbled in it as a young adult in a large studio class. "I was so self-conscious to be bad at something in front of people," says Talmey-Lennon. Years later, when she decided to give ceramics another chance at a small studio, she felt she had the maturity and agency to enjoy the challenges that come with it.
The meditative process of working with clay
"That really, really meticulous painstaking slow labour is, it's therapeutic for me," she says. "It feels good to get into that zone."
Working with clay can be a meditative process — the mindful attention to the natural material, tuning in to its vibrations, creates a flow state and a deep connection with it.
Ceramists have an intimate relationship with the material because they create the clay and glazes from scratch and need to understand their chemistry and reactions. "It engages every sense and it forces you to use your creative, intuitive mind, but also your intellect," Talmey-Lennon says.
Talmey-Lennon shares how pottery has helped her channel anxiety and be a coping tool for unhealthy behaviours and addiction. "I have a relationship with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that seems to come in waves and the detailed work in ceramics is a healthy outlet for that same type of energy and a way to focus the mind," she says.
"I can get into that hyper-focus zone where everything else falls away, and that's nice… the anxiety falls away and I'm not harming myself, but I can go so hard into it that I disappear," she explains. She is now finding the balance between immersing herself fully in the creative practice but not escaping into it, a feeling she experienced with alcohol before becoming sober.
Letting go of expectations: in pottery and in life
But she looks back and recognizes a lot of personal growth and acceptance from when she first started.
When she was a junior ceramist, she had a lot more attachment to pieces because the triumphs in pottery were so hard won. But with time, she's learned to let go of pieces that she may have spent 60 hours working on and that has felt liberating. "I've reached a point where I understand that the labour put into the piece is not lost just because the piece no longer exists," she says.
It's a great reminder of the impermanence of things in life and letting go with more awareness and ease.
This includes letting go of self-comparisons, even on a pottery competition show. "We have our skills and our strengths and our weaknesses, and I can't compare myself to anyone else and say, this person is a better potter than me or this person is a worse potter than me — because they're just a different potter than me," she says.
"There isn't a hierarchical structure to your skill level [in pottery]. It's more of a massive labyrinth of different avenues of exploration and the next potter over is completely on a different path. And you'll cross paths from time to time and then you'll go entirely off in different directions."
Follow competitors McCullough and Talmey-Lennon's journeys in The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down on CBC Television and CBC Gem
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