Passion for pottery

Kristen Pearcy, 17, makes a bowl on a pottery wheel in the home studio of Gene Hotaling in Ocala, Fla. on Thursday, July 15, 2021. Pearcy said she became hooked on making pottery and ceramics artwork when she took ceramics as an elective in her junior and senior years when she was a student at West Port High School. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2021.

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Posted August 6, 2021 | By Lisa McGinnes, Ocala Gazette

When 18-year-old Kristen Pearcy signed up for her first ceramics class in her junior year at West Port High School, she didn’t realize it would spark a passion for pottery. Now the recent graduate is focused on growing her craft into a career.

“I’ve been doing a lot of drawing, a lot of pottery. That’s pretty much what I do,” said Pearcy, who launched her Etsy shop, Mudskills, last November. “I’m focusing on working and marketing myself. I want to do at least one in-person show. I just have to get the confidence and the pots to do it.”

She’s enjoyed art and drawing since she was 10 or 11 years old, Pearcy said. She credits Gregory Smith, her ceramics teacher at West Port, for encouraging her to pursue pottery.

“He was the one who really got me into it, and I’m really thankful for him,” she said. “It was really my thing when I first did it. He told me, ‘You’re better than you realize.’”

During the pandemic, Pearcy bought her own pottery wheel to continue creating at home. This summer, she began working in studio space at the home workshop of Ocala potter Gene Hotaling.

From the time she begins a piece, her artist’s eye focuses on the result, Pearcy said. She especially likes getting creative with colorful glazes.

“A lot of pottery is matte, desaturated colors,” she explained. “Mine is really vibrant. I want to make everything really colorful. Everyone loves blue in pottery, so it’s nice to think about the blues. How can I do this blue with this green? Pinks are hard to come by. Really vibrant red is hard to get.” Using an outdoor reduction kiln has been the key, she said, to creating “the really bright, amazing colors.”

Although she also makes mugs and other pieces, most of Pearcy’s current pottery projects reflect her other interest – plants. She handcrafts custom pots for her collection of more than 30 plants. Her online customers especially enjoy the 2-inch pots she designs for tiny succulents, often in colors that “look like cotton candy.” Her plant pots are also for sale at The Peacock Cottage in Ocala.

“I love people enjoying my things,” she said. “I always think, how would someone else really enjoy this? That’s where a lot of my drive comes from.”