By Jim Bloch
Clay artist Dan Saultman will speak in Riverview Plaza in downtown St. Clair on Saturday, Sept. 23.
Saultman will the featured artist at the St. Clair Art Association’s second annual Potters Market, scheduled for Oct. 14-16.
Saultman produces a wide range of pottery, much of it focused on the kitchen — mugs, handmade porcelain teapots, berry bowls, fish plates, canisters, spice jars, butter dishes, casseroles, mixing bowls, cookie jars and vegetable strainers. He makes porcelain desk art commemorating crop circles, pumpkins and sailboats. He crafts miniature ceramic row houses reminiscent of the villages over which French-Russian artist Marc Chagall’s figures floated.
One of Saultman’s handmade porcelain teapots.
“His stuff is wonderful,” said Carolynn Szymanski, the art association’s educational coordinator and the driving force behind the Potters Market.
Saultman loves the intersection of functional utility and art.
“He will be speaking at Mannina’s Wine House in Riverview Plaza on Saturday, September 23,” said Marie Rediess, a member of the Potters Market committee. “Dan‘s talk is part of the SCAA lecture series. He will share his perspective on his world of pottery. The meet and greet starts at 2 p.m. with appetizers and a cash bar.”
“We can’t have it at the gallery because it’s still all torn up,” said Szymanski.
The roof of Alice Moore Gallery, home of the SCAA, was damaged during the hail storm of July 20 and the facility was inundated with water.
“They fixed the roof in our part of the mall so we don’t leak anymore,” said Szymanski.
But volunteers emptied the gallery in a largely successful effort to save the work of about 120 artists who exhibited there.
The Potters Market will be held in War Water Brewery.
“When I was in the army in Germany in 1973, I visited the little villages near where I was stationed and began to see the beauty of pottery,” said Saultman in his artist statement.
He studied art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design.
In his work, he often integrates clay and stainless steel.
One of the topics Saultman will address during his talk is the history of teapots, said Szymanski.
“There is this contrast from soft clay to the hard surfaces of metal that add a media harmony,” Saultman said on his Etsy page. “Sometimes I think about where my career has taken me. Why would someone choose clay. I could have pursued other higher, money-making artistic endeavors, but it was clay that shook my world and kept me interested. There was something there that had all of the elements that I needed as an artist; a sculptural, three dimensional opportunity that covered my love of product design and artistic content.”
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
