Today we’d like to introduce you to Ginny Marsh.
Ginny, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I moved back to North Texas just twenty years ago after retiring from many years teaching ceramics and raising a family. Since then, I have taught clay classes at the Craft Guild of Dallas and a couple of courses at the University of Dallas on the history of ceramics where I was fortunate to serve as Resident Artist for a decade. I have loved being part of these communities. When I retired again a couple of years ago, I knew I needed to connect with other groups in the area to keep growing and learning. Fortunately, art is a wonderful way to meet people and leads to new ways to challenge my art-making and expand my membership in various parts of the community.
I use the most basic hand forming techniques to make all sorts of pots—coiling, building with slabs, throwing on the potter’s wheel. They are fired in a small gas burning kiln. Like many other potters, I was first captivated by the sheer fun of shaping mud. Then I encountered the fire, which turns the mud back into stone. There was no going back. The resulting pots have a quality of transference, which, without words, gives you a good sense of the maker. Holding a hand made pot from a friend or from a potter of thousands of years ago is, in fact, a sort of way of shaking hands with the maker. There may even be visible fingerprints of the maker which remain as a testament of their presence. In some ways, pots may seem abstract, but the subject matter is really Hospitality. In them, we offer food and drink and witness to one another so they become a way to reach out and touch one another even in a time of physical distancing.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I was fortunate that my first professor of ceramics, Richard Peeler, challenged me from the first day and every day thereafter for the first year of my studies. He would question me or ask me to do things he had not yet taught, always in front of the rest of the class where the potential embarrassment was greatest. He allowed me to fail, and when I finally solved issues that had eluded me, he would say, “I wondered how long it would take you to figure that out.” I learned to follow him around the studio, to observe and ask questions and ask to help. I learned to emulate his working habits, working whenever there was an opportunity, no matter how brief, because those small efforts would add up. It wasn’t important to know where I was going because working would somehow lead to discovering the right path. Little did I know, he was teaching me to teach myself, which was essential in the adversarial environment of graduate school in those days.
After the first year, he began to treat me like a professional adult and would take me with his family to museums, galleries and to meet with other artists. Then, as he had done for others, he made sure I had a fellowship to graduate school and knew the other former students who had preceded me. He mentored his students for the rest of his life, but be careful when you let people help you this much. I ended up speaking at his funeral and his wife’s. I have had the help of all kinds from many people throughout my life. In the end, the important lesson is that it is our community that matters that we define ourselves by embracing membership in that community.
We’d love to hear more about your art.
I donated bowls to the first Empty Bowls event in 1990 in Michigan and have given bowls to these locally organized events to combat hunger in various places ever since, especially the large one in Dallas, which was started by Trinity Ceramic Supply and is now run by the North Texas Food Bank. I have also sent work to the Empty Bowls event in Wichita Falls. I like to participate in the semi-annual sales which the Craft Guild of Dallas usually holds to raise money for the organization. The Cultured Cup sells some of my work, and I participate in occasional group or solo exhibitions. I am currently working on an exhibition for the Goldmark Cultural Center.
What were you like growing up?
I was always making something, from coloring on the dining room walls to digging up the back yard and carving little cities in the side yard. Like other kids, I spent a lot of time outdoors, wandering the fields, enjoying the natural world and free to play unsupervised. While all of us were expected to look out for one another, including younger children, we had what are now considered “free-range” childhoods.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ginnymarsh.com
- Instagram: marsh_pottery
Suggest a story: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
