Transcript:
Sandy: My name is Sandy Booher, and I am a potter/ceramic artist from Chattanooga, TN. I have my own studio. I have been working with clay for about 25 years. I graduated from UT with a bachelor of fine arts and clay has been a part of my life ever since. I fired the kiln on Sunday, and just opened it. It's like Christmas; 'cause I never know what I'm gonna get. This is a piece, a vase. I look at the surface of the clay as my canvas. This is a clear glaze over the clay with the different textures.
Voiceover: Various samples of Sandy's pottery are shown at the Gifts of the Earth gallery. These include a large variety of bowls and vases. Specific items are shown, including: "Melodious Monks", a collection of singing figurines, A vase with green glaze, A dark blue vase, and an earth-toned cup and pitcher set.
Sandy: I've been doing lots of support groups with survivors, survivors of traumatic events, particularly with rape survivors. It's been a way for them to come and - I'll do particular exercises like "make your safe place in clay" because that's one thing that's really important for people after they've been through an event like that - they need to know that they're safe. They can make that in clay, and then it can be fired, and then they can remember that, and that can be their ideal safe place. Or if they are upset with an abuser, they can make the abuser - and that again it's a release. Because you realize, it lets all the negative energy out. And I think that when we have negative energy, and we have anger, it's hard to find a safe way to express that, 'cause you don't want to go out and do something violent to anybody else just because you are angry. And so you can be angry with the clay. You can be just as angry as you want to be. You can slap it against a table, you can throw it against a wall - and it hasn't hurt anything - and yet, that energy becomes positive energy.
Voiceover: More pieces are displayed in the gallery. These include: grooved table art, "The Travelers" - painted figurines with suitcases, a brown and white bud vase, and a green glazed plate.
Sandy: I've done a "Hint of a Woman" series, where I've taken the clay and molded it into a very subtle form of a woman. I may concentrate on a face, or I may concentrate on a part of a body, and it's not really objective - you might not be able to tell exactly what that was without knowing. I put them in sawdust firing, where I have a big metal trashcan, and I layer sawdust and newspaper and then I put the pieces in, and then I put more sawdust and newspaper, and I throw in pine needles because the resin from the pine makes interesting designs on the piece. I layer that up to the top, then I light it from the top and it burns down. The women represent a lot of things that women have been through in coming through the fire of life, and emerging into the people they are now.
Voiceover: More pieces from the gallery are shown, including: a hugging couple, an assortment of chalices, a short vase, a tall vase, and a basin on a stand.
Sandy: I believe a person with a disability can figure out ways to accommodate and ways to accomplish everything they need to, just do it in a different way. Clay is a perfect example of that, because when I learned to throw on the wheel, my instructor was impressed. I could learn to center in three weeks instead of three months, because generally it takes people that long of working at it. And he said "Well you know, everyone is looking for it." If you've ever seen pottery students, they got their head right down there on the wheel looking for that center, and you can feel it immediately. And so you know what you've done to make it, and so you don't need vision to center a piece of clay. Vision gets in people's way when they're working with clay. 'Cause you can just become one with the clay just by feeling it and just by listening to it. I've got a shape on the wheel, I can't tell exactly what shape it is, but as my hands are feeling it, I can move in and out with the clay and I become one piece with the clay. The clay talks to me, and I know people laugh at me for that, but you have to listen. I listen very intently to the clay when I am making a piece, it might tell me what it wants to be. I really still have to be involved with the clay; it's a part of my life.
Voiceover: For more information, email Sandy at: sbooher at bellsouth.net, or call 423-756-9656.
Credits Page: Produced by Steve Powell and Ezra Reynolds, in conjunction with Signal Centers of Chattanooga.