Pottery: Your New Favorite Hobby
By Gabe Wagner
My freshman year of high school I signed up for the Ceramics 1 class, simply because I needed an art elective. I quickly became obsessed with the art form and my amazing Grandma decided to sign us up for wheel throwing classes at a local studio. However, the busyness of life piling up, I stopped ceramics for about 5 years and thanks to Mellisa Wheeler’s hard work, my journey restarted in early 2021.
The ceramics studio at Southern Virginia University is run by Professor Wheeler and is a quaint space with 6 pottery wheels, multiple tables for handbuilding and a plethora of tools to use. In 2006, the ceramics program at Southern Virginia faded away and the ceramics studio sat unused. In 2019, Professor Melissa Wheeler decided it was time to restore the program.
“In 2019, a tenacious and motivated student saw the dust-covered pottery wheels and, with a burning desire to learn ceramics and with permission from Professor Gonzales, cleaned, organized, and painted the studio, which was a tremendous growth of work. When I came into the picture in summer 2019, I finished what she started and we offered the first ceramics class in 13 years.”
Over the past two years, Professor Wheeler has been able to lead students into the world of pottery, teaching the basics of various techniques to create bowls, mugs, pitchers, planters and tea sets.
The first four weeks of the ceramics course are focused on handbuilding techniques, including pinch pots, coil and slab building. Following the handbuilding portion, the studio is transformed to allow for wheel thrown pottery to be created. Outside of class, there is a time requirement of 6 hours of work per week. The studio is open to students Mon. through Fri. from 8 a.m. to midnight, which allows for flexibility and room to work with hectic student schedules.
From her experience working at multiple community studios, Professor Wheeler has transferred that same feeling of community into the program at Southern Virginia. Wheeler explains,
“I also really love cultivating an inclusive, warm, supportive, and safe environment in the studio. It is a special community every semester, and I’ve seen friendships and collaborations truly blossom in our cozy space.”
The sense of camaraderie is strong and helps push students to excel in the class, which Nicole Farnsworth (23’) describes as her favorite part: “I really enjoyed getting to bond with my classmates and seeing everyone’s interpretation of the weekly assignments.”
I believe working out of Southern Virginia’s studio is a wonderful experience that provides room for a great amount of growth in the art form amongst students.
Southern Virginia’s studio is the third studio I have worked in. This studio allows for a degree of freedom that is hardly found anywhere else. Being able to go to the studio and de-stress from a long day has been a lifesaver throughout the past year.
Whether you’re in the market for a new hobby or you just need a filler class, the ceramics courses at Southern Virginia are an option that I would recommend to anyone!
