Pottery is one of the oldest handicrafts in human history.

One Lexington husband and wife demonstrate why the art form has endured for so long.

Hunter and Amelia Stamps both create clay art professionally, but their end products couldn't be more different.

We're getting our hands dirty and this week's Arts and Culture, a segment we call Tapestry.

So the work that I make is mainly abstract figurative sculpture.

So it's more abstract and it's not a realistic figurative work, but all of it comes from the body.

Some of it's completely abstract, and so a lot of the work is trying to communicate a sense of the physicality of the body and what it feels like to be anybody, but not necessarily portray the whole body as like you would think of a statue.

My work is pretty much all functional and I like to do lots of dinnerware and serving pieces and tea services and coffee services, things that will kind of make you slow down and enjoy the moment.

I hope to convey a sense of calm and a peaceful feeling with my work.

So a lot of times I say I want the viewer to have a guttural feeling when they see my work.

Sometimes it can be a positive, sometimes it can be a little bit grotesque.

But my main goal is to have the viewer feel something.

There's so many variations to what we can make with Clay.

You know, everybody is starting with a ball of clay dirt from the ground.

But but there's such a variety when it comes to, you know, someone's art form and and how it comes out of them.

So, you know, someone like me, I'm making functional work with the same materials as, say, someone like Hunter who's making work that is more conceptual and made for the fine art world, you know?

For galleries, I enjoy working with clay because there's so many possibilities with clay.

And I love just the, you know, just getting your hands dirty.

There's something about actually like touching and manipulating clay, and there's been lots of studies recently about just the psychological effect of touching clay on a tactile therapeutic quality, of working with it as a material while you're touching.

And so I feel like that is something that still holds true to me even today.

I get better as you go.

Each piece is going to be a little bit different, and I really enjoy that because you're, you know, your hands are making the piece and it's going to be, you know, varied every time you're trying to get it to match.

Exactly.

But it's going to be a little bit different.

And I love that part of it.

You can tell it's made by hand and you can tell it's not made by machine.

And and I think people really respond to that beautiful artwork.

You can see the stamps work on display at the Lexington Central Library Gallery through March 1st.

Check that out.