Ceramics is an art form that has become synonymous with cute cookie jars and pots to place bouquets of flowers. But for the ceramic community of Wichita State, it is so much more than that — it’s their lives and futures.
Alum Scott Jones was a part of the Wichita State Ceramics Guild during his time at campus and still continues to help out his past community while also branching to his new beginning.
“(I’m) going to be moving on to my next step here in the next few months,” Jones said. “I’ll be heading out to North Carolina to kind of set up my own shop and continue the work and develop the work I established here in graduate school.”
But before he moved states to begin his own ceramic shop journey, he helped out the Ceramics Guild once again for their annual Holiday Sale.
The Ceramics Guild hosted their annual Holiday Sale from Nov. 19 to 22. This presented an opportunity for some of Wichita State’s students and alumni to get their work on the shelves and into the homes of the local community.
The guild is a large organization where people who enjoy ceramics can come together and talk about their latest ceramic endeavors. They can also help each other and influence what goes on in the ceramics community at WSU.
Jones said being a part of the guild provides them with multiple benefits, such as reaping 50% of profits for the guild.
“We’re in the guild because it means a lot to all of us and it gives us all opportunities to keep checking out the larger ceramic world that we live in,” Jones said.
The guild welcomes any major, not just art students such as senior Matthew Ritter, an engineering major. Ritter had not touched clay since high school but now participates in the guild after rekindling his passion for ceramics.
“I came here and got reinspired after a couple years without it,” Ritter said. “It was a lot of fun just to redo, so I’ve been doing it continuously, along with my other stuff.”
Other students like senior Wyatt Pankratz found an interest in ceramics for the first time in college.
“I think I found (ceramics) in sophomore year of college, and I had a really good instructor,” Pankratz said. “He was awesome, and he was super encouraging. I was originally here for art ed, but I think after that semester, I switched, and I’m just doing ceramics now.”
Pankratz said he likes how his pieces are up for interpretation from the buyer of the piece despite his own thought process for the pieces he creates. Other artists, though, enjoy how the clay allows them to be creative with their thoughts and ideals.
“I think we all kind of have a different kind of quirks with clay,” Jones said. “I deal a lot with the expressive kind of quality and gestural qualities with clay itself and that kind of malleable quality it has is so expressive.”
Making sculptures and pots is a unique process for each artist, but Ritter said throwing clay feels like exploring in a way.
“It all kind of starts in your head with your ideas and what you’re trying to come up with,” Ritter said. “And then you have to build on your experiences and then you kind of just go from there and see what happens.”
Pankratz said it’s beneficial to have these sales once per semester not only for the financial gain but also for the personal benefit of receiving validation for the work they’ve created.
“People get to engage with it,” Pankratz said. “They get to bring these things that we’ve made into their homes and into their lives, like give them to people … I think people, when they appreciate it, it means a lot to us because they looked at these tables, and they picked up our thing. They spent their money and their time and they decided to spend that on us. That’s super cool (because it) could’ve been anything.”
Jones said knowing that people were taking pieces home was meaningful and so was bringing awareness to the Ceramics Guild.
“It makes people aware when we do sales like this,” Jones said. “Just like showing people that the clay community, they’re still out there … By selling it to people, we can get them excited about it and try to just grow more awareness around the field of ceramics.”
