Feats of Clay

By Christine Mahoney

  The wheel spins. Hands transform a lump of lifeless clay into a dazzling display of creativity.

For these students, pottery is more than just playing with clay. It is a lifeline.

“It’s so little about the pottery,” says Nancy Utterback, who teaches a weekly class for adults with traumatic brain injuries at the city of Boulder’s Pottery Lab. The class provides a safe haven for people who struggle daily to do things most of us take for granted—get to the grocery store, remember a “to do” list, connect with friends and family. Here, art is helping reshape lives forever changed, in an instant.

“These folks were real movers and shakers with unlimited opportunities before their injuries,” says Ann Fontenot, a volunteer and teaching assistant for the TBI class. Although she has been taking pottery classes herself since 1970, “I have learned so much more from [her brain-injured students] than I have taught them. I am constantly inspired by them.”

Students enrolled in the nine-week fall and spring sessions come to the class after various injuries—biking accidents, car crashes and falls.  They range in age from 18 to mid-70s. But they all have one thing in common: They’re finding a supportive community in a refurbished firehouse at 1010 Aurora Ave. The class was started here in 2003 by Diane LaTourrette, who was a recreation therapist at Boulder’s Mapleton Center for 20 years before joining the city of Boulder Parks and Recreation staff.  

“We wanted to provide an opportunity for people to challenge themselves with creative things,” she says, adding, “We’re creating a safe environment where people can expand their horizons, gain confidence and end isolation.  That’s what it’s all about.”

Just as throwing a bowl on the wheel or starting a hand-building project isn’t easy, taking the first step through the doors of the Pottery Lab is tough for these students.  Some have been isolated in their homes or rehabilitation centers for months, even years.  

Carroll Harris, who fell onto unforgiving concrete in 1999, says it took guts to come to class for the first time.  But now, she revels in this network of support. “You feel that, eventually, these people can be your circle of friends,”  Harris says. Student Angela Phillips agrees.  “I enjoy the company immensely. I’ve learned a lot about creativity. It’s affected my concept of beauty.”

 

Leaves are pressed into clay, changing its texture. Students etch this image into their memories, feeling more confident with each new project.

For student Dr. Steven Gruber, whose brain injury stems from a 2001 mountain biking accident in California, the memory loss he’s experienced since the crash is particularly troubling.

“I was a general and vascular surgeon before my accident. I had a photographic memory,” he says. Before his TBI, Dr. Gruber traveled the globe. In museums all over the world, he viewed ceramic art that can’t compare to what he and his classmates are creating. “Nancy’s a great teacher,” he says. “This class helps me with organization, planning and technical skills.”

Working with your hands, shaping clay, is therapeutic in many ways.  The pliable substance is something Fontenot calls “a huge eraser. If you make a mistake, you can just smoosh it together and start over!”  Fontenot notes that the members of the TBI class don’t seem bitter about the hand they’ve been dealt. In fact, she says, “it amazes and humbles me to see the grace with which they live their lives now.”

Harris, who’s sustained three separate brain injuries, says the Pottery Lab teachers foster a “can do” attitude. “You can’t do things like you used to, but you come here and you say, ‘I’ll try this.’ It’s such a friendly, forgiving atmosphere,” she says.

Student Sherry Olson suffered her TBI in 1988 in a head-on crash in Australia. Instructors say she’s a mainstay at the Lab. “She rides her bike to class every Friday, rain, snow or shine,” says Utterback. Olson —who earned her Ph. D. after her injury, with her husband’s support— grins as she describes her Pottery Lab experience. “It’s a touchy-feely sport,” she says, laughing, as she holds a Raku pottery creation:  a whale-shaped whistle, fired at extremely high temperatures.

Clay is a blank slate, reshaped through touch.  

For these students, the Pottery Lab is a place not only to create art, but to re-create lives. The instructors remind students: Potters are never judged by the last piece they created, but rather by their entire body of work.  

“I go home Friday nights thinking, ‘If we all put this much energy into being the best we can be, think of what this world could be like,’” says Utterback.

A glimpse of that world is visible in the creations these students coax from lumps of clay. 

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Christine Mahoney, a former TV journalist, teaches writing at the newly-formed Program in Journalism and Mass Communication at CU-Boulder.  She lives in South Boulder with her husband and two children, one of whom created his first pottery piece while she was writing this story.

MORE ABOUT THE TBI POTTERY PROGRAM The TBI community project—Noah’s Ark in clay—is on long-term display at the Iris Center in Boulder, 3198 Broadway. For class registration information contact Cory Lasher, therapeutic program coordinator for the Parks and Recreation Department’s “Journeys” program, at 303-413-7269. Part of the EXPAND program, it “provides fitness, adventure and leisure opportunities for adults with mild traumatic brain injuries and other similar neurological conditions.” Newcomers are always welcome to visit or join the class. –CM

 

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