Ellie Lieber

 

I was first introduced to ceramics as teenager. Growing up in a small farm town meant artistic opportunities were far and few between, so when I found one, I gave it everything I had. During my junior year of high school, I discovered an abandoned pottery wheel in the school storage closet, and I begged my teacher to let me put it back to use. I came to school every day before the sun rose, converting every minute I could into practice. I walked around school constantly caked in clay. I worked for hours and hours, watching dozens of pieces land in the reclaim bin, and yet, my failures never fazed me. I knew from the moment I began that I had found what I was designed to do.

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​Over the next three years, I obsessively focused on improving my skill: progress felt addicting. I pounced on every opportunity that came my way, which mostly consisted of visiting home studio potters. I met several ceramicists from incredibly diverse backgrounds– a surgeon who became a hobby potter in retirement, a ceramics teacher who resigned to become an architect, and a production potter, running her business out of her garage in my hometown. They each molded me into the artist I am by honing my skills, teaching me the fundamentals of throwing, and graciously letting me practice with their resources. Their varying experiences, united by a shared love for clay, serve as my greatest inspiration and the spark igniting my desire to become a teacher.

 

Since graduating high school, I have hosted several art classes for my local community. I felt that intergenerational relationships were strained by the pandemic, and through my classes, I strived to bring together people from different age groups. These classes gave me so much valuable experience related to planning, budgeting and leading groups of people. It was the first time I had seen my planning, hard work, and knowledge impact someone so directly.

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My successes at home inspired me to serve alongside the people of Turkana, Kenya. For two weeks, we provided medical supplies and assistance to rural areas under the guidance of Bright Hope, an organization with a longstanding community-informed partnership with local leaders. Near the end of the trip, we set aside several hours to hold painting classes with Kenyan farmers, which I took charge of leading. During my class, I was confronted with a language barrier: many of my students only spoke Swahili, and a few knew some common English phrases. I had to quickly learn how to communicate without speaking, using solely visual demonstrations and gestures to teach the class. During this time, I found that art can be used as its own vessel of communication. My students couldn’t understand me when I told them to paint a blue horizon, but when I showed them, they all understood that it was the sky.

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This incredibly impactful experience reminded me how powerful and raw art can be. Despite a language barrier that could have resulted in feelings of isolation, we produced dozens of successful paintings together as a class, all featuring a basket of produce from the harvest completed earlier that morning. Among many other reasons, I am so incredibly attracted to pottery, and art as a whole, because it is a true universal language that everyone can understand.​