Carole Reevy:
I am a clay handbuilder. I like to take a hunk of clay and create something from it. Other than making little animals out of clay in elementary school, I had no experience with it until I was in college (Cal State University at Sacramento) and was required to take "Methods of Teaching Art". At that time, I promised myself that sometime I would learn more about working with clay. Sometime…when I had time. It was quite a few years later when I actually started doing it. That was in the early 80’s. I was busy being a reading specialist in the Durham, North Carolina County Schools and my children were off on their own.

The Edison Johnson Recreation Center had a pottery studio and that is where I went to learn wheel throwing. I was not too successful. The event which made me decide that I should change my approach to clay was when I looked out the window of the studio and saw two men laughing at me and my lop-sided pot. My teacher suggested that I try handbuilding. Having no handbuilding instructor available, I read everything I could get my hands on about the process. I was especially interested in Southwestern style pots. When we lived in New Mexico, I had seen the Native Americans coiling their pots and then smoothing them out so that they actually looked like wheel thrown pots. After trying that for awhile, I decided that the effect of visible coils was much more beautiful. Why make coils and then erase them?

By that time, I was teaching children clay handbuilding after school at the Edison Johnson Center in Durham. I also taught at other places such as the Chapel Hill YMCA in the "Grass Roots" program and the Durham County Schools summer arts program. On my own, I was making coiled pots. They were selling very well at the occasional Craft Sales at the Center and around town. In 1986, I started teaching coiling to adults on Saturday Mornings. After I retired from the Durham County Schools, I continued to teach both children and adults at the EJ Center.

My husband and I moved to Bluffton, SC in 1997 where I have continued to both teach and create.