I've always been involved in one artistic endeavor or another as far back as I can remember. As a kid, practicing my drawing
skills, taking afterschool classes at the Maine College of Art. As a teen, and in my early twenties working with oils, trying
to capture the quiet grace evocative of an Andrew Wyeth landscape. For a time I even foresaw myself living the misunderstood
life of a painter on the rugged coast of Maine, that is until I took a ceramics course to satisfy studio credits.
I can't say
that I was a natural, but I can say that I experienced something with clay that I had never felt before with any other medium--a sense
of wholeness. And that kept me interested as my skills developed. The Ceramic Arts offer something that the graphic arts do not-- a
3rd dimension. And it's this, along with the subtle complexities that clay embodies that so captivate me as an artist. For the first
time my work could not only be an expression of beauty, but an expression of function. This seems to really click with my pragmatic
New England upbringing. Words can not do justice to the feeling I get as the soft clay glides through my fingers on it's concentric
journey around my wheel. The excitement I feel as the burners on my kiln roar away is only exceeded by the rush I get as I open the
door after a firing to reveal the new pots. It's been said that Potters work with their hearts, their heads and their hands, and I
know I am truly blessed to be one. --kristopher alden neal
