Inside the pottery studio at Featherstone Center for the Arts in Oak Bluffs, the wheels are spinning as clay takes shape in students’ hands.

“We’re not machines. So it’s not going to be perfect,” said ceramics teacher Debbie Hale, showing the beginner class how she trims excess clay from a bowl to make it more light and shapely.

Debbie’s calm, encouraging approach to teaching has drawn a loyal and committed following of adult students who take her four-week pottery courses again and again, often for years, as they develop their skills at throwing and shaping bowls, plates and other vessels on the wheel.

“Everybody learns at a different pace; it can take a long time to learn,” she told the Vine during a pre-class interview at the pottery studio.

“Some people can sit right down and they can do it, and for other people, it takes a long time,” Debbie said.

Featherstone executive director Ann Smith said pottery is the most popular of all the studio arts classes at the center, drawing dozens of adults a week year-round.

“A lot of that is Debbie,” Ann said. Featherstone also has children’s pottery classes and periodic open studios for experienced ceramists who don’t need instruction.

A gifted ceramist in her own right, Debbie sells her tablewares at the Chilmark Flea Market, The Beach House in Vineyard Haven and the Featherstone gift shop, where her bowls and vessels are displayed alongside work by fellow pottery teachers including her own former instructor, Frank Creney.

Jane Seagrave, who began taking Debbie’s Monday afternoon classes after retiring last year, found herself instantly captivated by the craft.

“It’s very tactile, and you end up getting a feel for the clay. I love the wheel,” said Jane, former publisher of the Vineyard Gazette Media Group.

“I have given bowls to every relative and friend and I have a whole cupboard full of bowls that I’ve made,” she said. “It’s totally absorbing and fun and I’m completely into it.” This is her fifth go-round in Debbie’s beginner class.

“She is a wonderful teacher who gives you small nudges that help you figure out what it is that you’re doing wrong,” she said. “Every week I get better, and that’s a very gratifying feeling,” Jane said.

Debbie also teaches an intermediate-level class on Wednesdays for potters who have taken the beginner course, but Jane said she still has plenty to learn in the basic classes.

“I expect I’ll remain a beginner for quite a while.”

Debbie was herself a beginning potter when she took her first classes at Featherstone around 2008, when she was still working full-time as business manager for the Reynolds, Rappaport, Kaplan and Hackney law firm in Edgartown.

“A friend of mine that winter said to me, ‘I have always wanted to take a pottery class. Do you want to come with me?’” Debbie recalled. “And I said, ‘Sure,’ having never thought about taking a pottery class in my life! I had no idea where Featherstone was. Nothing.”

Debbie’s friend wound up getting sick for the first class, so she went on her own — and got hooked on the wheel. “I just kept on taking lessons and kept on taking lessons and kept on taking lessons, and then, as I got better, started selling some of my work,” Debbie said.

“Everybody here [at Featherstone] has always been so supportive of me,” she added, recalling that founding Featherstone director (and Ann’s mother) Francine Kelly provided extra access to the pottery studio so that Debbie could practice outside her work hours at the law firm.

Her first teacher was an exacting perfectionist, she said. Then came Frank, who helped her see things differently with just a few words of advice.

“Frank was like, ‘Okay, it didn’t do exactly what you wanted it to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.’ And that was huge for me. Huge,” Debbie recalled. “That just, like, gave me freedom.”

Debbie fosters the same sense of freedom in her own students, leading them gently and reminding them often that they don’t have to do things exactly the same way she does.

“There is no right way in trimming,” Debbie told the beginner class, as she ran a carving tool along the edge of a spinning bowl. “Now we’re into aesthetics, and this is the look that I want, because I want my bowl to be more refined,” she explained.

Debbie takes a similarly light touch with her intermediate students.

“They’ve done many, many cups and bowls and handled items in the beginning classes. In this one, we’re going bigger, or taller, or wider, or whatever they want, or they can add texture to their piece,” she said. “So this class can go in any direction; I follow everybody else’s lead.”

Intermediate student Sheila Elliott also started in Debbie’s beginner class.

“She was the right teacher,” said Sheila, who recently completed a stoneware bowl with a vibrant blue glaze.

“I think I’m trying to become artistic,” Sheila added.

“You are!” Debbie said.

At any level of skill, pottery requires patience.

“It’s about centering the clay, centering yourself and being patient. You never can just finish something in one shot when you’re on the wheel, and I like that,” Debbie said.

“I love the whole process: It’s very peaceful. It sucks me in completely,” Debbie added.

“When you’re throwing something, if you’re thinking about problems in the world or something else, you can’t do it.”

 

Louisa Hufstader is senior writer for the Vineyard Gazette .

For more information on ceramics classes at Featherstone Center for the Arts, visit featherstoneart.org.