The Potter and Her Pottery
Behind a bungalow in the Garden District in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a wondrous place where friends chat, children play, and Jaime sits at her wheel. It is the end result of a dream that started when she was just 10 years old and fell in love with pottery. After years of collecting other ceramic artists’ work and silently wishing she could make pottery she became brave enough to stick her neck out and try a life long dream. She enrolled in a hand-thrown pottery Leisure Class at the LSU Union. Several classes later she was more drawn in than ever and realized she needed more formal training. She re-enrolled in Louisiana State University to start another Bachelor’s Degree but this degree would be in Fine Arts, concentration in Ceramics.
In different hands pottery is different things. It can be the canvas on which the artist paints, it can be the stone from which fantastic animations come to life, and to some it can be the very fabric from which life’s essential tools are spun. In Jaime’s hands it is love formed and given as art, sculpture and vessel all in one to be enjoyed endlessly. It is mud mixed with heart and soul to become a cup which you can hold in your hands and feel an echo of the artist. It has a simplicity, a charm, and a unique flavor that bonds you with her as you take it to your lips or hold it in your hands.
Somehow special and heartfelt, now you feel heightened as you enjoy that which you always have in a brand new way. The coffee is crisper, the soup is heartier, even the water is sharper somehow - and inside you smile.
No one sits down once at the wheel to throw a perfect shape. It takes trial and it takes time - years in fact. With such admirable quality so many forms come up off the batt only to crack in the first phase of drying or explode in the second phase of firing, especially those first few years. A drop too much glaze or a new thinner mix of clay could at any time ruin the most promising piece. So many kinds of clay, so many glazes, a wide range of temperatures, colors and combinations. So much to study and so so much to love.
You can find Jaime nestled in her studio still dreaming, still creating, still falling in love with pottery. A cup, a platter, a bowl, something to serve on or grow something in. Around southeast Louisiana, in specialty gift stores, taverns and even sometimes at Arts Markets or Festivals you’ll again find her talking with neighbors and new friends as they delight in their discoveries. So many happy people, happy customers, happy reviews. This is the ceramic artist. This is Jaime Miller.
