We were lucky to catch up with Joe Robinson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joe, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

East Creek Art is a 20 acre forest art retreat. Now entering its 40th year in operation, East Creek is home to a 40 foot long, wood burning pottery kiln called an Anagama. It’s a very special kiln that fires over 1,000 pots for 6 days and nights around the clock, often with 100+ artists involved.

The kiln is a tool with a shared work, shared result process. Because it requires a crew of 5 people to stoke the kiln for 6 days, no single person can use this tool alone. Rather, it’s a community tool which must be shared and “handed off” between shifts. This handoff requires a great deal of trust and communication, and the consequences are high as some 200 labor days and thousands in costs are applied just to the firing, not to mention making all the pieces and transporting them to the forest kiln site!

The 40 year process of building and maintaining the kiln has been the pleasure of a lifetime for my predecessor, Nils Lou, who introduced me to the kiln as an 18 year old college freshman. That was 20 years ago and now I steward the kiln that has helped to shape so many students, artists, and educators over the years.

To borrow from artist and scholar Theaster Gates, “Making the thing is cool, but making the thing that makes the thing is really cool.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a former marketing professional who always had a love for pottery. I had the credit and opportunity to purchase an important art community property in duress after its previous artist/professor owner died.

In my transition, I’ve restored buildings, land, and ecology, and now welcome 1,000 visitors to my property for various art events and programming. Our tiny cabins, bunk house, airstreams, and wood fired pizza ovens are just some of the resources available to guest artists.

We are also the new home of Eutectic Gallery, an established contemporary ceramics gallery which was founded in 2012 in Portland.

We’re proud to serve a diverse community of students, artists, and educators including local high schools from as close as our neighbor to as far as Alaska, undergraduate and graduate students, and a variety of local, regional, and international visitors.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My mission is to further art education through the lens of craft. Sometimes I have to earn money from other work, which I call “off mission” work. In my view, living the dream is to spend 100% of your time in “on mission” work, and also be able to eat and pay bills!

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There is a reasonable amount of money available in grants for those who know how to access the system. If you know how to do a cool thing, and you would like to share that cool thing with others, particularly kids or disadvantaged communities, there’s probably a way to get paid to do that.

The notion that it’s even possible allows for the research to begin. Most folks simply don’t start, leaving plenty of rooms for enterprising artists who are friendly and motivated to share their craft.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://eastcreekart.org
• Instagram: eastcreekjoe, eastcreekart

Image Credits

Mario Gallucci took all photos with me in them as works for hire; all others were taken by me personally.