How it all got started...

My name is Jennifer Nesbitt. I first became interested in 2002, after watching a potter at work at my first visit to Yankee Peddler. I was fascinated by the physicality of working with clay and of making things that were both beautiful and useful.
I learned early on that working with clay involves the whole body and not just the hands, and there are lots of steps to creating each piece-throwing, trimming, embellishing, firing, glazing, and firing again.

There's something wonderful about manipulating a shapeless lump of clay, and about seeing and feeling a idea take shape. When creating a piece, I'm conscious of form, symmetry (and intentional asymmetry), balance, proportion, and many other elements of aesthetic content. But I want each piece to appeal to the touch as well as the eye. I spend a lot of time on texture because it adds another dimension to the tactility of working with clay and lends a sense of movement and rhythm to the fixed object. I try to use colors to the same effect, combining and layering glazes to create interesting visual textures. Even the "feet" on many of my pieces are part of the interplay between fixedness and flexibility.
I'm intrigued by the possibilities of such contrasts and enjoy exploring them in my work.

I enjoy coming up with ideas that hit a nerve or tweak people's expectations.
Much of my work has determined by the materials I've had to work with, but I look forward to creating bigger pieces, experimenting with raku, incorporating (blown) glass and other mediums into my clay pieces, and to taking my work in new and unexpected directions, surprising myself and others along the way.

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