We were lucky to catch up with Andrea Moon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andrea , appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

How did you learn what you do?

In high school, I enrolled in a work-study program where I was able to leave two periods early every school day to work for an artist/potter that ran a small production pottery 12 miles from my hometown. I became an assistant at her workshop, quickly falling in love with all processes of ceramics and understanding customer relationships through a local business. Through the repetition of making, quality-controlled production, I was learning how to practice, make mistakes, and understand my craft of making.

Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process?

Absolutely nothing. The journey, the collected experience, and the routine of challenge is what drives me, but also attracts me to continue my learning process daily. I am constantly learning about my craft, so that my processes of making drives me with intention and empathy.

What skills do you think were most essential?

I think there are several skills that are essential to being a maker, a sculptor. The physical understandings of technique, scale, balance, craftsmanship, surface, etc. as well as the emotional skills that play an integral role in making; the content, intention, presentation, dialog, etc. Through the practice of making, facilitating your craft can be synonymous to your emotional conceptualization. So, I suppose – the essential skill to strive for is when your hands and head are working together.

What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I went to school for making, a few times over and over again, so this question is always present. There will always be obstacles, life is full of them, but what I truly want is to achieve self-direction and self-understanding through time spent challenging, making and researching ideas. So, I look at this question a little differently, the glass half-full; If I wasn’t presented with the daily obstacle to obtain more knowledge, research, practice, answers, why even do it? Why even practice my craft? What is interesting about always having the answer, being right? These questions drive me and allow me to present with my learning experiences.

Andrea , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in Northwest Ohio in a rural town near Lake Erie. My parents were very supportive and encouraging of my creative interests. My mother is a painter and a retired social worker, in my childhood she took me to contemporary museums to see the current exhibitions and to participate in events, occasionally we would take an art course together. Early on, I learned about work ethic and discipline by helping my parents on house projects, my father was a cabinet maker and a contractor, so there was always a project that my brothers and I could learn from. However, my forging experience of why I chose to work in clay, was influenced by one of my mentors, Jan Pugh. She owned and operated, Packer Creek Pottery, a majolica tableware company. She also went to school for ceramics and built her business out of her garage with an old potter’s wheel. When I began working as her assistant, at the age of 17, she had grown her business into two warehouses that housed our workshops, here I learned and became intrigued with all facets of making and selling handmade ceramic ware. In addition to learning wheel throwing, slip-casting, kiln firing, and clay & glaze chemistry, I learned how to drive/work a fork lift, understand commissions and customer relations, and how to run shipping and receiving for a ceramic business. I was able to have an internship-like experience before entering undergraduate for ceramics, motivating me to attend Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio for the late nights of hard work in the ceramic studio. Constantly questioning process and making in clay, in 2006 I went to graduate school. I completed my MFA in ceramics and sculpture with an emphasis in arts administration at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.  Along the way of studying, I attended artist residencies and art organizations engaging in art communities and conversations in craft programming. It was clear that I was interested in how individuals engage as a community through the education of art and how those programs are effective for makers. I began teaching ceramics and sculpture at universities, and I also became interested in how non-profit art organizations work, I participated in creative environments with others, as well as studied the administration around me. I understood that I could be a ceramic studio artist, while supporting an active arts community and cultivating a creative environment for students and emerging artists. I am fortunate to have the desire to be a studio maker and to balance a career in arts administration and education. In the past, I served as the residency and communications coordinator of Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana, the director of the international artist residency at The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, and the director of education at Craft Alliance. Currently, I am lecturer in ceramics at Washington University in St. Louis, I find myself reflecting on technical questions of foundation and craft from my students that leads me back to my creative practice. I work through concepts the same way I try to teach them to conquer their own.

My personal making process is quiet and meditative, I work in our home in a shared studio with my spouse, an amazing ceramic artist, Dryden Wells. Our home was built in 1911, the third floor, once known as a ballroom, is now our ceramic studio. This keeps our knees creaking and our thighs strong, as our kiln is flights below in the basement.

I build with many small clay parts to create a structure slowly and methodically, focused on form and stability. Form is important to me as it visually represents, volume and containment of space. When I complete a form, I focus on glazing a color palette that does not interrupt the beauty of the many connected parts. Most of the times, my work is monochromatic. It is important for me to create depth and interest by layering meaning into the clay through surface information, and the folds can hold layers of hidden thoughts and questions of the human condition. I use contrasting metaphors; light verses dark, interior verses exterior, vulnerability verses stability. When I am creating my sculptures, I am interested in the repetitious act of practice; building a form through several collective components.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I love being an artist, it makes me keep my eyes open and thoughtful toward the world. I find that I am constantly searching for an experience to be reflective and meditative while making. Being a creative, I have an opportunity to share my visual language with others and I find that rewarding.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think we need younger collectors and patrons of the arts; those that can support by taking courses taught by teaching artists, engage by purchasing and collecting well-made artwork, and actively volunteering and inviting friends into your community arts organizations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.andrealmoon.com/
• Instagram: andylmoon

Image Credits
Photos by artist