- [Announcer] Tonight on "Showcase" with Barbara Kellar.

Ceramic artists Brenda Tarbell and Terri Kern.

Stay tuned.

"Showcase" starts right now.

(bright orchestral music) (bright orchestral music continues) (water whooshing) (birds tweeting) - Hi, I'm Barbara Kellar.

Welcome to "Showcase."

We have two very interesting ladies here today.

You don't know whether to say girls, women, ladies, because they're young and- (Brenda laughs) Yes, we're all young.

And they are here because they are in a field that is so interesting.

And it's pottery and ceramics and you both do it and you've done it for so long.

We wanna know about how that works, how you got started.

And Terri.

- Yes.

- And Brenda.

Terri, tell us about your beginnings.

- Gosh, how far back do you want me to go?

(Terri and Brenda laugh) - Oh, you don't have, in ceramics.

- Well, I think pivotal for me, I was studying archeology in college and just was.

- [Barbara] That's it.

That would do it, wouldn't it?

- Was bored and I was like, "If I can't be the person that digs up the art, maybe I can be the person that makes it."

- Makes it.

- And that's when I really pushed for ceramics as my major.

I had to do a little convincing with my parents.

But, you know, that's where it all started and I really haven't looked back.

- Wow.

When you initially thought that that was going to be your quote, "vocation," how in the world do you, I mean, I'm sure there are people who make money from, but it seems like not a very lucrative.

(group laughs) Right?

- You've gotta love it.

- I know, I know.

- Well, it was really interesting.

You know, my dad was a business guy and so we would always talk to- - Yeah.

- To us, I'm one of three girls.

He would talk to us about business and I made my first business plan when I was in college.

I was taking, I went to Edgecliff College, which was then bought by Xavier University.

And while I was there, I had just learned how to throw on the wheel and there was a job board for someone who could throw at the Arts Consortium on Linn Street where Joyce Clancy worked.

And she was a very well-known local potter.

And when I went there for the job interview, she ended up hiring me, even though I didn't have very much experience, 'cause she thought I had true grit, 'cause I was willing to apply for a job that I couldn't do.

- I would say that's .

.

.

- Right.

- That's chutzpah.

- Right.

I wanted it.

So instead of like throwing, I mopped and swept the floor and wedged up clay and made up glazes.

But a lot of her friends came in and I got to meet Mike Frasca and Greg Seigle and Allan Nairn and Marcia Cochran and I met a lot of artists who were making ceramics and that's how they made their living.

And that was really transformative for me 'cause I was like, "I could do this."

And that's kind of, you know, what I set up as my goal.

So while I was still in college, I wrote a business plan and I worked at Earth and Vessel in Madeira and I bought my first wheel and a $400 kiln that was used and I literally just took that kiln apart.

I've been using it all these years.

- Yeah.

- And I just took it apart.

And so that kind of was able to springboard me into my career.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You mentioned throw a pot.

Tell our audience the lingo, that, throw a pot.

Does that mean make a pot or does that mean, what does that specifically mean?

- It means throwing on the potter's wheel.

So that, correct me if I'm wrong, - No, no.

- So you wedge.

- Throwing the wet clay.

- Yeah, you wedge up a piece of clay.

It's like a pyramid shape.

You've got a potter's wheel and you, you know, it's just like learning how to drive a stick shift.

You're pressing down with one foot.

- Oh, like a sewing machine.

- To make, right.

To make the wheel go faster.

And before you start to actually make your piece on the wheel, you take the piece of clay and you throw it as close as you can to the center of the wheel head.

And that's how you start the process of throwing a pot.

- And you hope that it sticks.

- Exactly.

- You do hope that it sticks.

- Because sometimes it can.

- If you don't throw it hard enough, or the wheel just throws it back off?

- That can happen.

- That sounds like a challenge there.

- It can be a challenge.

- Yeah.

- Throwing is difficult to learn.

It took me about six months to get really good at it.

- Really?

- What about you, Brenda?

Did you take to it right away?

I don't know.

It took me a while.

- Yeah.

- So that's the very beginning.

- Yeah.

- Your equipment is, you have a lump of clay that's in a cylindrical shape.

And then you have the wheel that you put your foot on and you make it.

And then you have the kiln, which is the oven that when you're all finished, no wait.

When you're all finished just with the pot, not the decoration or anything, do you then put it in the, what's the .

.

.

- What's the process?

- Yeah.

- Well it's very interesting, with ceramics, there's 1,000 different ways to do it.

The way that I personally do it is I'll make my pieces, I will throw them on the wheel, I'll trim the bases, which is a second process after you throw, you let your piece dry, so that you can pick it up and handle it.

And once you can handle it, you can turn it upside down on the wheel head.

You get it back in the center, and then you carve a foot from your vessel so that it has a nice pretty finish as it sits on the tabletop.

Some people will then let it dry all the way, and then they'll bisque fire it.

And then they'll- - Now you said- - Put a glaze on it.

- Bisque fire it.

- Right.

- What does that mean?

(Terri and Brenda laugh) See, we're talking to people, including yours truly, who know nothing about this.

- Right.

- So?

- Right, well the bisque firing is really kind of the magical part, I've always thought, of ceramics.

That's when the molecular chain that is clay actually changes.

So the clay molecule, I might get this wrong, is Al2SiO3H20, maybe.

- [Barbara] Well, we need to know some math.

(laughs) - And when you fire your piece in the kiln for the first time, it gets to about 1,400 degrees, and I think that's when it gets to something called quartz inversion.

When the clay molecule has, the water part of the clay molecule is removed, it's a chemical.

- Yeah, the chemically combined water is driven off.

- Okay, so you need to be a chemist as well as an archeologist.

- Well.

- Yeah.

- Ceramics, I always say, it's 50% art and 50% science.

- Yeah, I would say so.

- I'm much better at the art part than the science part.

I'll admit that.

Yeah.

- Okay.

So when do you put the decoration on?

- Personally, I put the decoration on after the piece dries all the way before it's been fired at all.

- Okay.

And does that, doing it like that, does that make it different from something someone else does it or it's just a different process to get to the same result?

- Yeah, I mean, it's probably a different process to get to a similar result.

I paint the surfaces of my pieces with underglaze, which is basically a liquid clay that has different colorants in it, which give you all the different colors, just like a paint would.

But this is actually liquid clay.

And because I put so many layers on the surface, the layers have to dry thoroughly in between each coat.

I'll work on five or six pieces at once.

And I like to paint the underglaze on the surface when the clay is at the bone dry stage, because that's at its most porous.

And when you paint the underglaze on, it's absorbed into the clay body very quickly and it dries very quickly.

So by the time I put green on the first one, the second one, the third one, the fourth one, the fifth one.

By the time I get back to my second coat of green, it's dried on the first one.

So that's kind of how I do my process.

I paint all my decoration on before the clay has been fired at all.

- Then, do you put a glaze on?

- [Terri] I will put a glaze on, so I'll do all the decorating, then I'll put it in the bisque firing.

And once it's done with that bisque firing, I'll wipe the surface with water to get any dust off the surface.

And then I'll hand paint a clear glaze over the surface.

And then I fire it a second time and once that second firing is done, then the pieces come out and you can see the rich beauty of the underglaze painting that I do on the surface.

- Okay.

Now I have a lot of questions.

We'll go back to those though 'cause we need to get, find out about Brenda.

How did you become a ceramic artist?

- At college.

I was in education and fine arts.

And once I took a clay class, I just thought, "This," and I told myself this story that ceramics or pottery was practical.

People need it.

- Oh yeah.

- Well really.

(Terri and Brenda laugh) - To get the rainwater and to put the grain in.

- To store our water.

- Yes.

Right.

- But so, it was also the late '60s, early '70s, and there was kind of this movement of back to the Earth and- - Oh yeah.

- Homesteading and all these things.

And I think that it's, well, it really just.

- Were you sort of a hippie?

- Well, perhaps.

(group laughs) - Yes.

Is that what you're trying to say?

Yes, yes.

We wanna cut to the chase here.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, at any rate, I at some point dropped the education major and just zeroed in because I have a tendency to get a little scattered.

So I just did the BFA in ceramics.

Someone who had been my sculpture teacher at Ohio State moved to teach at the art academy.

And after I graduated, I moved to Cincinnati to teach in exchange for studio space at the Clifton Earthworks, which was about 1974.

And I did that for a year or two, and I met my husband at the Earthworks, and then I got kind of sidetracked.

- Should we reveal who your husband is?

- Well.

(laughs) - He is no stranger to "Showcase."

- Well, and he's my, I call him my agent.

He's almost more like a carny barker, but Jim Tarbell.

- [Barbara] Jim Tarbell, Brenda Tarbell.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Yes.

Well, no one can have a better agent than Jim Tarbell.

- He is a promoter.

- He knows everybody.

He knows how to talk people into things.

He is a promoter, agent.

- And a friend and I, when we left the Earthworks, decided we wanted to have our own studio.

And he had this building on Spring Street that he was working on and he offered the first floor to us, Mike Raskin and myself, to have our studio.

But we both needed jobs to fund being able to have our own studio because we were working in someone else's place who built the kiln and bought the equipment and all that.

And so my job was in the kitchen at Arnold's.

And that was a really big job because I had actually never worked.

I liked to cook, but.

- So this was when he owned- - When he bought Arnold's.

He bought Arnold's right around that.

- And you ended up in the kitchen?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- So I got sidetracked, but I decided at roughly the age of 50 that if I was going to resume my work, I just dabbled.

I had done clay for a couple years before Jim and I joined forces, and then I returned to it at the age of 50 in a more meaningful way.

- Yeah.

- And so I was throwing pots and sort of returning to the way I had been working when I left college, which was making functional ceramic pottery.

- Yeah.

- And the building where I rented studio space, I was in the basement and it was cold down there.

And I entered a- - Even with the kiln going?

- Well, the kiln was upstairs.

- Oh.

- But this leads to the fact that, one winter I entered, a local woman that had a teaching studio in St. Bernard called Throwing Clay Pottery, Trina Feldhake, had a single servings place setting show.

And I had looked at a book that someone had given me a long time ago, "Finding One's Way with Clay."

And it was a book entirely on pinching.

And I thought, "I'm going to pinch."

- Now what's pinching - Well hand building by pinching clay.

So if you start with a lump of clay, you would just- - Keep pinching it?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I pinched my place setting, but it was- - Oh, your place setting of China to eat on.

- Yeah, a bowl, a plate, you know, cup, a saucer or whatever.

And I got a ribbon, first place.

- Woo!

- Oh no, you pinched.

- So, you know, when you do something and you think, "Oh," and it's warm upstairs.

(Brenda and Terri laugh) - And it's warm upstairs.

- So I just slowly started turning more toward a different way of working.

It was gradual.

I was altering wheel thrown pots and making fish teapots and by paddling and altering the shapes before that, so it was a progression of ideas.

- Did you major, did either one of you, did I hear you majored in?

- I have a BFA in ceramics.

- Right.

Ceramics.

- And she's got two degrees.

- Two degrees.

And where are they from?

- I have a BA from Xavier University - From Xavier.

They have a ceramics?

- Mm-hmm.

They have a ceramics department.

So I had a ceramics major and a drawing minor.

And then I have a master of fine arts degree in ceramics from Ohio University.

- Wow.

I didn't even know this.

What about you Brenda?

Did you get a ceramics degree?

- Yes.

Yeah.

- Oh.

From UC?

- No, from Ohio State.

- Ohio State.

- Yeah, yeah.

So I moved here to have a studio or to be part of a group.

- Yeah.

- Teaching studio.

- Is that because you want to have that as a vocation or?

- Yeah, I mean, when you're, what, 24, or something?

- I guess you would think.

You think you're gonna sell a lot of your work, right?

- Yeah.

And there was a little gallery on one side and you'd teach.

And it seems like one of the things that often helps pay the bills for artists is to either be a part of a cooperative thing or to teach.

- Yeah.

- I know Terri has done wonderful workshops.

I've done some teaching too.

- There's a new show on PBS called "Pompeii."

They've got a new dig.

You mentioned archeology.

And how is it that these things survive over that, you know, that's the one thing they find the most of is pottery.

- Yeah, well, I mean, if you think about it, in historical civilizations, what is something, if you don't have a lot of tools or a lot of money, clay, you can dig it up from the ground.

- Right.

- Right?

You can form it, you can heat it, and then it can hold your grain or your water, like the things that were really important just to live.

- Yeah.

- And you know, if you look at the way that the Greeks or the Native Americans have decorated the surfaces of that work, it's things that were important to them, things that were sacred, things that were commemorating something.

And there was just a lot of it.

And because it is- - That's what you do.

- Yeah.

And after it's fired, it's strong.

I mean, yes, it can break, but it also has some strength.

It's not like paper.

- Some is more brittle than others.

- Yes.

- There's a piece at the art museum that I always love to pass.

It's an Egyptian vessel.

It's about that high and it's dark at the bottom, where the fire, you can see, you know, and it's not glazed, but it's thousands of years old.

- Yeah, that's what I mean.

- It just touches me whenever I see it.

I'm just like, and it's beautiful too.

The form.

- Did you ever talk about, what was the exact origin?

What people were the first to figure out that you could take dirt, moisten it, and make it, and then, I mean, they didn't have ovens like kilns and those.

- No.

- They must have just set it in a fire.

- Yeah.

- Like built up coals or dug a pit.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And you wonder, what civilization was the first to discover that?

- I'm not sure - Because it's probably the most- - Anyone that ate.

(Terri and Brenda laugh) - What'd you say?

- Anybody that ate.

- Anybody that ate.

- The people that survived were potters.

- Yes, they wanted to be able to hold more than their hands.

- That's what I'm saying.

- Yeah, I mean, it's really fascinating, and you talked about the arc, mentioned the archeology.

And I love that too, that subject too.

And it's just, it is amazing that it's the pottery that lasts.

- Yeah.

- And they can sort of figure out how people lived just by- - Looking new at shards.

- Yeah, exactly.

They have this new dig in Pompeii that they're talking about.

And it's a series, I don't know how many- - I'll have to look for that.

- Sections.

I've seen two.

I don't know if there's more or not, but it's brand new that they've unearthed and I guess at Pompeii there's a lot more.

But they're learning such incredible things about how many people were there, they thought it was 30,000 and it's really 60,000.

I'm sure those aren't the correct numbers, and you're sort of in that milieu of- - Oh yeah.

- Creating something that people have been, have enjoyed, and it's practical.

And you said, you thought learning about pottery was practical, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- This sort of little sliver of me that's practical.

- Yeah.

Right.

(Terri and Brenda laugh) Exactly.

- But yeah.

And also, almost as long as people have been making pottery, or I don't know, for needs, for ritual purpose too, and for life events and passages.

Urns for ashes, whistles, totems.

The Egyptians had those canopic jars for body parts that you might leave later on.

- Yeah.

You're gonna need those in your afterlife.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So do you have- - But they had, they were embellished.

- Oh yeah.

- They would have a bird or a, I don't remember all the various animals for the various organs, but.

- Yeah.

- So, when you start pulling on this thread that is ceramics, you start finding your way to the kind of work that is meaningful to you.

And I mean, Terri's, well, you should talk about your work and how the direction.

It's narrative.

- Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think one of the things about ceramics really is when you're in your studio and you're making something, whether you're using a pinching method or you're throwing on the wheel or you're carving, the history of ceramics, as you mentioned, you know, in Pompeii.

- [Barbara] Right.

- It goes back so far and there is that feeling of connection with civilizations, people.

- Right.

- A woman, a man, you know, someone who is maybe at first making things to hold sustenance, but then later- - Just for beauty.

- Yeah.

For beauty.

Or to tell your story, to document your life.

I mean, I think when I started, when I was in graduate school, I did a series of sculptures about my grandmother who had Alzheimer's disease.

And when I got out of graduate school and I started, you know, making a living, I was just like, "What do I see around me?"

And I'd paint vegetables on things.

Or, you know, like, "Ah, my life is crazy."

So I did a series called, you know, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Natural Disaster."

And it was just about all the crazy things in life and I just started to do simple little paintings on the surface.

And over time, that's developed into a rich visual vocabulary that talks about everything from just like, oh, you know, I'm doing Weight Watchers right now.

I need to stay away from those potato chips and french onion dip.

- Yeah, that's right.

- To, you know, doing pieces about what it is to be married or taking care of my mom now who has dementia.

- Yeah.

- So just the depth and breadth of expression through one shared medium of ceramics, that it gives the artist the opportunity to talk about so many different things.

Whether it's just the beauty of form or it's a particular story, it's someone else's story, it's your story.

And that allows people to feel connected.

So when I'm at a show and I'm selling my work, and I'm talking about like, "Oh, this is about when I first got married," they're like, "Oh my gosh, my son's getting married."

And so we talk about those stories and they feel connected to me and to their son through this piece of art that I've made.

- Yeah.

- Connected enough that they want to purchase it, which is great because obviously that's how I make my living and I need that.

- And do you make a living?

- Yes.

Yeah.

- Wow.

- I make a living off the ceramic work.

- Where do you sell your things?

- Well, I sell all over, mostly I do outdoor fine art and fine craft events.

I used to do Summer Fair.

I've traveled as far away as, you know, Miami for Coconut Grove.

I've been to Chicago selling my work.

I've even been out to Oregon.

So primarily, that's the way that I would make my living is to make work and go to shows.

But when the pandemic hit, they shut all the shows down and there was not the opportunity to make work.

So I had a friend who helped me develop my website, and he helped me develop a line of live online Zoom classes.

And so I did that for several years.

And now I make my living doing a combination of selling my work directly to the public, doing online teaching, and some workshops, as Brenda talked about earlier.

So it's a real mix.

- Wow.

Yeah.

- And I'm lucky in that I, pre-pandemic, I had been a contacted by someone from the Taft Museum of Art, and I'm gonna have a show at the Taft Museum in October, so.

- Oh wow.

Good for you.

Wow.

- That's what I'm working on right now.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

I'm very excited, yeah.

- I'll definitely come and see that.

- Wonderful.

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah.

And Brenda, do you sell a lot, or are you just more of a (indistinct).

- I feel like I sell what I make.

- You sell everything you make.

You mean your houses aren't- - Chock full of art?

- Chock full.

No?

- No, I don't have much inventory.

But yeah.

- I mean, you know, Brenda, her work is so beautifully crafted.

- Yeah.

- I mean, you know better than I, but it's just, I have a collection, my own collection of Brenda's pieces.

And they're just beautiful.

- [Barbara] So do you have any specific special things coming up?

- Yeah, we're really excited.

Brenda and I are both members of the Studio Collection Group and it's a group of women artists who have been encouraging and helping other women artists here in Cincinnati to have a platform to show and sell their work.

It's called the Studio Collection Show and Sale.

And this is gonna be our 30th anniversary.

It's always the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

And it's a really cool group of women.

It started out with four women artists, or maybe five.

And then as they moved to a bigger location, they invited other artists to become part of the core group.

And one of the things that we do is we like to invite emerging artists to come and show.

So they get to be around a lot of other women artists.

- More seasoned veterans, I guess you could say, right?

- Yeah.

- Right.

- And your exhibit at the Taft is something that happens every year?

- Well, the exhibit at the Taft, that's gonna be a one time exhibit.

I mean, maybe they'll invite me again.

That would be really cool.

- That's right.

- But it's just a real compliment to be a local ceramic artist and to have a museum approach you about- - No kidding.

- We would like to- - An artist residency, right?

- I think I'm gonna teach like a workshop and there'll be a presentation but the work will be at the museum for a period of time, so.

- Well, there are lots of shows, I guess, where you can take your stuff.

- Yeah, we're also members of Clay Alliance, which has several shows a year, just clay shows.

So that, besides the clay shows that we do, we do a thing called Empty Bowls where potters donate bowls and a restaurant makes food and people buy a ticket, get a bowl, get something to eat, and it raises money for the Freestore Kids Cafe.

- Oh, uh huh.

- And, so it's been something that we've done.

It was really the reason for starting the Clay Alliance.

- That's right.

- And we've raised quite a bit of money for the Kids Cafe.

- I think it's over $300,000 that we've raised over the years cumulative.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- For the many years.

And it's local potters donating, throwing bowls, and donating them for the cause.

And that money that's raised really helps the people in our local community and that's a wonderful way to give back.

- And that happens every fall as well.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So kind of keep your- - So people just have to stay tuned to when these things are happening.

Well, your lives are so interesting and I can't wait to see some of your stuff.

- Well, thank you.

- And I can't believe you don't have lots of it around.

I guess it's so popular that you just sell everything and so- - That's right.

- You don't have anything left.

Thank you so much.

You guys are terrific.

- You're welcome.

- [Announcer] Join us next week for another episode of "Showcase" with Barbara Kellar right here on CET.

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