Jessica Sutherland

When I was 5 or 6 years old, teachers always seemed to be asking me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’m proud of the tenacity, stubbornness and consistency of my answer. Through every pre-K “essay” (2 lines of squiggly penmanship), every show & tell, every popsicle stick diorama, I stuck to my guns. What did I want to be? “Matisse.” My little heart didn’t know about colonial gaze or appropriation or the problematic history. I only knew the electricity, the vibrancy, the sense of life that pulsed through his work. It was magic, and I was smitten.

One of 2 temper tantrums that I had in my life was at The Louvre (sorry, mom and dad). The other was over a grey plastic sneaker with wheels that you rolled around on and has nothing to do with this story, so I leave that there for another time. Back at The Louvre…I sat and stared at each painting for hours, trying to take it all in, creating narratives in my head about each one, tracing the movement of the brushwork across the canvas (with my eyes…they really don’t like it when you try to touch the masterpieces), and feeling the energy of colors. While totally silent and still on the outside, the size of my soul seemed to breathe larger than my little body could contain. When the museum was finally closing at the end of the day and we had to leave, I burst into tears and asked if I could live in that room if I was very very careful and helped the “art police” protect the paintings. The answer was a resounding “Non” and a decidedly French side-eye. I could not be consoled, although my chocolate croissant should be credited for it’s heroic efforts. Chocolate-faced and tear stained, I couldn’t imagine waiting 10 hours to come back, and my parents couldn’t imagine spending 12 hours in a single room of a museum again. (Little did they know when we went to the British Museum that I would buy a book on hieroglyphics, plop down in front of a sarcophagus and start translating.) The seed was sown. I was in love with art.

But, then, life happened, along with expectations, and my love of art got sidelined as a potential “nice hobby”, but never a career. From middle school onward I plugged down a pretty conventional path - weighing down my transcript with all the academic clubs and sports and eventually AP classes that I could cram in, but never an art class. Not once. I went to college with my eyes on medicine or law and got to have some incredible experiences (ask me to tell you about arresting hearts with potassium ice or my first fancy business trip with the firm, limousine and all, where I fell asleep on the dawn flight. On my boss. There was drool). But, it wasn’t quite right. As I shifted from declaring medicine, to law, to literature, my parents saw an alarming trend and begged me to stop there. I did. In British Literature. And I had a multi-year love affair with Bronte and Austen and Dickens and Elliott and Thackeray and was happy romping through vivid worlds of the imagination. I found a happy place.

After graduation, I worked in a bookstore - heaven for a total book nerd - and played Billie Holiday and Sam Cooke and Edith Piaf while in my quiet little paradise, talking about books all day. Then, my parents decided (as a retirement), that they would open a restaurant. My mom’s background is child psychology (many marshmallow tests in my house), and my dad was an engineer so naturally they thought they’d plunge into the restaurant business as a “retirement”. Ha! To anyone who has been in the food service industry, you know that it’s no retirement. They asked me to help them set up and get going, and I agreed.

Fast forward a decade and I was still at my “temporary” job at the restaurant. I worked with my mom, dad, grandmother, sister and an incredible group of people at our little tea room. It was wonderful. And stressful. And horrible, depending on the day. I had a greater sense of human nature, earned the hard way, through that job. I got to cook and bake and create, and it touched on something. It was a creative (and delicious) outlet. One of my favorite things to do, early on a cold winter morning when I was the only one at the restaurant, was to take a freshly baked croissant, a warm cup of coffee and go sit in the corner on the heat register. The quiet and peace and warmth (and carbs) were fairly close to perfection.

So, after medicine and law and Austen and being a chef, I finally (finally!) made my way back to art. I took a class in pottery at Good Dirt and was hooked. Now, I’m happily married to Mr. Dirt himself, creating and teaching side-by-side with him, getting art and love and freedom all rolled into one amazing life. While I might be a very [very] distant cry from being “Matisse”, I do get to draw and paint for a living. I do get to create lines of movement and strive to represent some beauty in what I do. And, to me, pottery has one up on paintings -pottery is art that you touch and interact with and connect with. You use it, and I think there is a particular beauty in purpose. It doesn’t hang dusty on a wall, it’s in your hands for a morning coffee or a consoling cup of tea, it’s at your table, part of your celebrations and life moments. And, I can FINALLY touch the art, sans being banned from The Louvre.

As a side note to all the little Matisses out there, art IS a job, and a worthy and important one. You don’t have to relegate what you love to the sidelines. And, even though I’ve enjoyed my circuitous path, , you don’t have to waste a decade (or so) trying to justify doing the thing you love. Just do the thing. Life has a funny way of meeting you and helping you find the path forward.

The Lightning Round…

Rob:

1. First Job? Working for Bill Miller in the Ag Department at UGA making a primitive website about Best Management Practices for stormwater control.

2. Secret Talent? I was in the Juggling Club in high school and can still pull off juggling lit torches.

3. Always in your bag/pocket/car/studio? A seemingly random assortment of tools related to the last thing I had to fix. Very often it involves a multi-meter, screwdrivers, and a wire stripper.

4. Favorite way to relax? Playing mandolin with friends is pretty much my happy place. I love getting in that flow state and letting my fingers just fly across the fingerboard. I also love the pre-dawn shift when we wood fire. I drink tea and stoke the kiln while the rest of the world sleeps and then enjoy the dawn chorus as the birds wake up at first light.

5. Favorite season? Spring. The rebirth of all the flowering plants and that delicate green of the freshly opened buds lift my spirits. Until the point when the air is so thick with pollen that you can see it.

6. Daily uniform? Carhartt work pants, a t-shirt (preferably threadbare) and slip-on shoes.

7. Coffee Shop Order? Latte - no sugar

8. Comfort food? Chicken and andouille gumbo

9. Introvert or Extrovert? I’ve always felt like an introvert and I get anxious about meeting new people, but over the many years of teaching and running a business, I’ve become a lot more comfortable in my own skin and happier spending time with people in small groups.

10. Morning person or Night Owl? Morning person…I love the freshness of the new day when I’m rested and ready to tackle new projects…but I need my morning beverage and a hearty breakfast before I get going.

11. Salty, spicy, sour or sweet? Sour and spicy, like my personality.

12. Beach or mountains? Preferably both.

13. Gryffendor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, or Ravenclaw? Huh?

14. Unexpected Hobby? Building mandolins.

15. The movie you could watch/or song you could listen to over and over? I was a huge Rush fan growing up and I still think a lot of their songs hold up well…Limelight always brings a smile to my face as soon as I hear that opening riff.

16. Best 1-sentence Life Advice/words to live by? That wasn’t a mistake…it’s just your contribution to the pile of learning.

17. Best Pottery Tip? Let go slowly.

18. Desert Island Pottery Tool? Am I allowed to bring a wheel?

19. Favorite form to make? Least favorite form to make? I love big bowls, and sometimes I put drain holes in them so they can be even bigger and serve as sinks. They’re comfortable and spontaneous and low-stress. At the opposite end of the spectrum are teapots. I actually do like the challenge of making all the parts work well together, but if I get more than a couple started at once, I feel like a slave to their drying schedule.

20. Most thankful for? My family and the life I get to live surrounded by great people doing enjoyable and fulfilling work.

Jess:

1. First Job? Mucking stalls at the barn next to my house in exchange for riding horses. I still want this job!

2. Secret Talent? I’m weirdly good at things that don’t matter - kadima, remembering jingles from 10 years ago, catching things that fall off of counters. You get it.

3. Always in your bag/pocket/car/studio? 60,000 pairs of sunglasses and 17 billion lip balms…none of which are the ones I want.

4. Favorite way to relax? 3 options, depending on mood: 1-Netflix & tea/coffee; 2-Long, hot bath with sparkling water and lime; 3-A walk in the woods (not in the summer in Georgia…)

5. Favorite season? Fall. Fall. Fall. No other season exist for me.

6. Daily uniform? Stretchy things - yoga pants, a tee, a dishevelled bun.

7. Coffee Shop Order? Blonde Americano (Iced in Summer) with Almond Milk and Stevia

8. Comfort food? Thai. Tom Kha and Pad Ma muang. Mmmmmm.

9. Introvert or Extrovert? Yes. A total extroverted introvert who loves to laugh and do things and be around people one-on-one and then have heaps of alone time to charge my batteries.

10. Morning person or Night Owl? Night Owl, darnit. I keep trying to be morning person, but it’s not going well.

11. Salty, spicy, sour or sweet? Yes. Again, Thai food. But, if I had to rank them: Salty, sweet, spicy then sour.

12. Beach or mountains? Beach one million percent. I feel most like myself there. I can think. I can breathe. I am barefoot 99% of the time - there’s something in the energy and the air that exhilarates and grounds me. Also, I’m a Pisces, so there’s that.

13. Gryffendor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, or Ravenclaw? Ravenclaw. No doubt. Luna!

14. Unexpected Hobby? I adore collective nouns, and collect them. A “flamboyance of flamingos”, a “bloat of hippos”, a “constellation of starfish”, I just love them. I also like random facts and dad jokes. I’m the worst.

15. The movie you could watch/or song you could listen to over and over? Sense & Sensibility

16. Best 1-sentence Life Advice/words to live by? Learn to let go - of perfectionism, of outside expectation, of things that don’t serve you.

17. Best Pottery Tip? Let go of the idea of “perfection”…it’s not a thing. Have fun.

18. Desert Island Pottery Tool? Mudtools Finishing Sponge. It’s my precious…

19. Favorite form to make? Least favorite form to make? Bowls. There’s just something about bowls that feels like your hands want to make them. Least is bottles. They are the devil’s spawn.

20. Most thankful for? Being able to live this life of creativity and freedom, surrounded by love and adventure. I know how lucky I am. Thank you, life.