Artist
Clary Illian
USA
Pots for the everyday. Function as meditation.
She studied with Leach, apprenticed with Hamada, then spent decades making functional pots in small-town Iowa.
Clary Illian studied at the Leach Pottery and apprenticed with Shoji Hamada in Mashiko. She could have built a career on that pedigree alone. Instead, she returned to America, settled in Ely, Iowa (population: 2,000), and spent five decades making functional stoneware. 'A pot can be a friend,' she writes, 'a daily companion that serves you coffee and receives the use in a graceful way.'
What might a lifetime of making useful objects teach?