Potter Hopper hip on clay

Mar. 29—The process of pottery making may not be long, but that is not necessarily the case for Sherry Hopper. She hand-makes, sculpts, sands, fires and paints her crafts all in-house.

Hopper, who uses a vintage-style kitchen theme, said every glaze she uses on her products is handmade and made from scratch by her.

"All of these glazes I make from hand. I make all my glazes," she said. "I don't buy commercial glazes. It's like cooking, it's a recipe, then you have what is called 'specific gravity' and certain ones have to have a specific gravity.

"I really enjoy the glazing process ... I think about each individual piece and what I want that piece to look like ... your glazes play a big part in what your piece is going to look like when it's done."

Stephen Tiron, an art teacher at Morehead State University, inspired Hopper to appreciate the art in pottery, she said.

"I was lucky enough to have him as a pottery instructor and he's the one that did all the bronze statues all throughout the university. He had a big impact on my love for pottery.

"You don't have to go to college to do pottery, you can find someone locally who can help you learn the trade, it doesn't take a college degree."

Hopper said her love for pottery dates back to her college days attending Morehead, working on her bachelor's degree in studio art, when she had to take on a class for her major.

"I had to have a pottery class for a requirement and got hooked and have been hooked ever since," she said. "This has always been something I wanted to do, I'm retired now and living the dream."

Among many vintage-style pieces crafted by Hopper are a flower frog — a ceramic lid for mason jars with a number of holes designed to hold and arrange flowers in an organized fashion — a ceramic fruit juicer with ridged edges for freshly made lemonade or juices and a ceramic berry bowl with small holes to rinse berries of all kinds.

"It's my free therapy, especially when I was working and I would come home. It was nice to sit there and throw pottery and not have to worry about it," Hopper said.

Hopper has lived in Oregon, later moving to Georgia before coming back to call Ashland home.

"I love the people around here. I have made so many friends by doing the local markets," Hopper said. She partakes in the local markets such as the Greenup County Farmers Market where she has bumped into a couple of women whom she now calls her best friends.

"I love being in Kentucky," she said. "I love being a part of the Kentucky culture that's around here, it's why I moved back here."

"Pondhawk Pottery," a Facebook page managed by Hooper, is the best place to get in contact with her if someone is interested in her pottery-pieces, she said.

"As a little girl, we had a cottage on a lake up in Ohio and I can remember sitting out there with my dad and all these big, huge dragonflies would fly around the lake. He taught me to love them," Hopper said. "We would plant flowers and bushes that would attract them — it's just a memory from a time with my father."

Hopper said the pottery-making process is fun and worthwhile, but the price for the equipment and material — not so much.

"Having the money to fund it," she said, is a challenge. "Clay right now is over a dollar a pound and I usually buy anywhere from 500 to 1,000 pounds at a time, because they reduce your prices. The kiln is expensive, the wheel is expensive, ... It's a very expensive hobby."

She said community members cherish her artwork and she has noticed a number of people returning to get their hands on a smooth-painted piece of pottery.

"When you hear, 'I'll be back later, I don't have my money' you think OK, goodbye, but they come back. If you feel all the bottoms of my pieces I make," they are all diamond sanded, she said. "It's a nice smooth finish and they like that."

She added, "It's nice to let other people enjoy some of the things I produce and it keeps me out in the community, that's a big part of it. I can't just sit there and have this hobby and hoard everything I have."

When it comes to determining how much material is needed, Hopper said the amount varies on what she is wanting to create.

"I open up a box of clay and wedge it to loosen it up, we call it 'to wake it up,' then I weigh it out according to what I am going to make. Like a mug I would probably do a pound and a half and form a ball then slap it on the wheel and take her away."

Depending on the season, Hopper said it will determine how many days of the week is dedicated to wedging clay and crafting pottery.

"In the summertime it's probably three to four days a week and the winter probably just two days a week."

Hopper said almost all of the material purchased to craft pottery are bought in Kentucky.

"For chemicals I usually go to U.S. Pigment (Supplier of raw materials and colorants used in the ceramic and glass industry) because I buy in bulk. I like to try to make sure I buy most things from Kentucky."

She said she has inspired two of her daughters to join her at conventions and markets and one of them has become inspired to start creating pottery.

"The youngest one of them has shown interest that she wants to throw on the wheel, that's nice," she said.

(606) 326-2657 — ajohnson@dailyindependent.com