Steve Smith, Primal Potter and Entrepreneur

Some fine news for Steuben-area arts: Steve Smith, an accomplished sculptor, potter and ceramicist, is “retiring” from thirty years as an Art Professor at Defiance College, to open a new business venture: 4 Corners Studio, Gallery and Pottery, just south of Tom’s Donuts at Lake James/Jimmerson Lake near Angola. Initially the gallery will open for special events, and eventually will sell paintings, prints, pottery, sculpture, glass, and jewelry made by select artists throughout the Midwest, in addition to Steve’s pottery and other ceramics.

Steve is already known here to many in connection with his much smaller outlet, Lake Gage Pottery, from which he sold pottery over many holiday weekends the past years, but this new studio and gallery manifests as a larger, long term financial commitment to regional art, informed by a lifetime of work in the field.

Certainly interesting … but more so yet is the man and artist behind this venture, Steve Smith himself. His work has won many awards, and even made the November 1991 cover of House Beautiful, yet underlying his obsession with pottery is the “soul of a cave man.” Understand what this means – it is not a cartoonish jest, but reflects a profound and direct apprehension of and connection with nature and natural forces.

We talked for a couple hours - his love of clay and the process was obviously intense - but never having “thrown clay” myself, I really struggled to fathom the appeal. “It’s so primal,” he would say, but what did that really mean? Coming back to the question several times finally teased out these paraphrased  insights:

“Clay itself is primal – it comes from the earth, it is damp, it contains rock and minerals, it is tactile; and working with clay brings out the cave man in me. My favorite “book” is Forbes Studies in Ancient Technologies. If I were on an island alone, that’s the one book [actually nine volumes] I would want. And then there’s the fire: you have to fire the clay in a kiln. Different kinds of wood have different properties affecting the ‘burn’ and ultimately the ceramic’s texture, appearance, etc. And finally there is vessel itself: it encompasses space, has volume, internal and external curvature, mass, glaze, design … it is art!”


These explanations, especially hearing them from the man himself, helped a lot, and at this point I thought I had it. But a few days later I watched a 9 minute YouTube video of “throwing clay” on a potter’s wheel, which provided yet additional insight. If you have never seen it done, check out this clay-throwing demo. Otherwise you will never imagine the fluid, dynamic, nuanced interactions between the spinning clay and the artist’s hands, Zen-like when the artist is a master. Another YouTube video, Steve Smith--Clay Dancing in Flames, centers on the wood-firing kiln process. This video is considerably longer, but just a couple minutes suffice to capture the ineffable but enveloping mood conjured by the long firing. If you watch just part of these videos, I guarantee you will see pottery henceforth with very different eyes.

What does the pottery actually look like? You have to see it yourself – no couple photos can do justice. Pieces may be expected to range from $12 to $1,200, so just come in and look. And don’t forget about the other artwork: paintings, prints, sculpture, glass, and jewelry as well.

Welcome to the Steuben/Lakes region Arts, Steve Smith and 4 Corners Studio, Gallery and Pottery! And at the same time, let’s not forget the many other artists of all sorts working here amongst us: this is indeed a very special place.

Speaking of such, note for your calendar: Nov 25/25 is the Old Mill Shoppes and Art Gallery Christmas Artisan Show:  East on 120 through Fremont, left on North Ray Road past the Wild Winds Buffalo Preserve to the 3-way stop, right onto 750 N about two miles to Old Mill on the left. Or from the Clear Lake Marina, turn north onto 700 E then left onto 750 N at the cemetery, Old Mill just ahead on the right. Lots to see and buy from many regional artists, and a wonderful alternative to the Black Friday shopping crush.

On another note, I’ve written a “You are the illustrator” story about two schoolchildren, Hillary and Humphrey, who feel very inferior to their more evolved, so sleek and so smart ScreenHead classmates. ScreenHead children have sleek flatscreen monitors for heads: Jennifer, a FacebookHead, has 1,097 Facebook ‘friends’, while Jared, a GoogleHead, can find 21,654,021 references to nuclear radioactive, in less than one second!

But as the school year unfolds and the seasons pass, Hillary and Humphrey discover important differences between the wonderful things HumanHeads do, and the relative sterility of ScreenHead experience.

Check it out at ScreenHeads: ScreenHeads: A Story for Children (and Adults), and if you or the children (or adults) in your life submit one or more illustrations, I will publish them (with credit) in a 2012 ScreenHeads follow-up post.

Until the next post, know that the Angola area lakes region is an Art Region, and its towns are Art Towns!

If you would like direct email notification of new Art Beat posts, simply send an email with the words “requesting Art Beat notification” in the subject line to StephenRowe.OriGraphics@yahoo.com

Stephen Rowe currently serves as the Angola Regional Artists’ Guild publicity chairman and writes two additional blogs:
     ArtMissionary.blogspot.com
     OriGraphics.blogspot.com

Stephen welcomes correspondence of all sort per StephenRowe.OriGraphics@yahoo.com