DICK HEISER Ceramic Artist

I earned my BFA Ceramics at Western Carolina University in 1974 and my MFA in   Ceramics   at East Carolina University in 1981. 

It was a great time to be at ECU, we were moving into the new school of art building and a lot of kiln construction was required.  I was also the Graduate Teaching Fellow in Ceramics and taught adult pottery at the Wilson Technical Institute.  While working on my minor in glass at WCU in 1975, I served as the Ceramics studio assistant.

So what about my work?  It is a process, a continually changing process.   It took a while to write and publish my thesis.  I sought a justification for what I created, and was constantly changing directions and focus.  To this day, it seems ideas come from everywhere and nowhere.

We were wood firing back in the day when it was still a novelty or something only done in traditional settings or in Japan.   It was not always the results that we sought but the process, the human energy required, and the bringing together of fire, earth, water and air.    

We potters can be a philosophical bunch.  I do most of my work on the wheel.  We expound about centering clay and oneself in life.  Admittedly centering is good for clay and people as it helps us to find our focus, our center, which brings harmony and symmetry in clay and life, or life with clay.  But once centered, wobbles do occur, and at times those wobbles add interest to life and clay, it just helps to keep things interesting.