Carol Youngner
Carol Youngner, 59, is a ceramic artist and teaches pottery classes. She believes everyone has the ability to be creative
Working with clay is a little bit like playing in mud. You can get messy here in my studio and no one will object! Adults often haven’t done that since they were kids and they soon realise it can be a lot of fun.
People often come to my classes saying, “I’m not artistic. I’ve never made anything, but I’ve always wanted to.” If they have a go, they almost always find they can be creative. It’s in all of us and it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures.
The problem often starts at school, with teachers telling children that their artwork doesn’t look the way it should. When children hear that, they start to think that they can’t do anything. It’s much better to let them be playfully creative without worrying about making it look ‘right’. When I’m teaching, I start by giving people the basic techniques for working with clay. Once they’ve mastered those, the best way to learn is just by going ahead and enjoying it.
Pottery began as a hobby for me when I was a social worker in Washington DC. Then I joined the US Peace Corps, learned basic French and started working in Zaire in 1979. I wanted to travel and to stay long enough in one place to get to know people and work with them. That’s where I met my husband, who’s Belgian and was doing his military service there as a doctor. When we decided to settle in Belgium 27 years ago, I found out that my American qualifications weren’t recognised here and I would have to go back to university for four years to retrain as a social worker. That didn’t appeal to me, so I decided to turn my hobby into a career.
I spent a year doing an apprenticeship and since then I’ve been pretty much self-taught. I set up my own studio with the help of a government-funded loan for people starting their own businesses. The loan allowed me to buy the necessary equipment, a kiln and potter’s wheels, and my first studio was in our tiny garage. I’ve come a long way since then: now my studio is much larger with better space for group classes.
Chemistry was never my favourite subject, but I’ve developed an appreciation of it by working with ceramic glazes. If you want a good colour and texture, you need to understand the glaze components and what heat does to them. Chemistry at school might have been more interesting if only I’d known how I could use it.
Working with clay is fascinating and I love experimenting. Recently I’ve found a way to get a smoked effect similar to that of Native American pottery, which produces gorgeous, polished black pots. The Native Americans achieved that by smoking their pots in an open fire. My neighbours wouldn’t like it if I did that! But I’ve found I can create a similar effect by wrapping my pots in newspaper and aluminium foil and leaving them to smoke in my kiln.
One of the great advantages of being self-taught is that you’re unrestricted. Now, though, I’ve decided to join some classes myself and they’ve opened up new horizons by introducing me to working with glass. That’s another very ancient technique and it’s given me a whole new point of view and fresh inspiration.
Whichever medium I’m using, I always do my best to be as ecological as possible. When you’re working with chemical materials such as barium, cobalt and cadmium, you have to be very careful how you dispose of them.
Recycling is a way of life for me and clay is a material which can be used over and over again, as long as it hasn’t been fired. Even when it seems tired out, you can just moisten it, put it in a plastic bag and leave it to nap for a while. It always comes out refreshed and ready to be modelled again.
FOR MORE:
www.youngnerpottery.com
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