
Camela Johnson, Ceramic Artist & Erica Anderson-Senter, Poet
Season 12 Episode 7 | 26m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Guests: Camela Johnson, Ceramic Artist & Erica Anderson-Senter, Poet
Guests: Camela Johnson, Ceramic Artist & Erica Anderson-Senter, Poet - The arts are all around us! Join host Emilie Henry each week for stories and discoveries from our region's vibrant and growing arts scene.
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arts IN focus is a local public television program presented by PBS Fort Wayne
Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne

Camela Johnson, Ceramic Artist & Erica Anderson-Senter, Poet
Season 12 Episode 7 | 26m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Guests: Camela Johnson, Ceramic Artist & Erica Anderson-Senter, Poet - The arts are all around us! Join host Emilie Henry each week for stories and discoveries from our region's vibrant and growing arts scene.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Coming up, we'll talk with ceramic artist Camela Johnson and poet Erica Anderson Senter.
It's all next on Arts in Focus.
Welcome to Arts in Focus.
I'm Emily Henry.
Camela Johnson is a ceramic artist working out of her home studio here in Fort Wayne.
In the fall of 2014, some friends commissioned her for a stoneware platter two bowls and two mugs.
Out of that, her business Linden Tree Pottery was born.
Camela invited us to her home studio to learn all about how the purpose of Linden Tree Pottery is to create beautiful but functional ceramic pieces for everyday use.
Camela, thank you so much for having me to your studio today.
I want to know when you first fell in love with art.
I know sort of the the journey you've been on, but I want to know when you when you first realized you were an artist.
I guess I really can't pinpoint because I've always made things like I remember as a child sitting at my kitchen table, at my mom's kitchen table, cutting out flowers from the flower magazines that come in the mail.
And I could do that for hours.
And so I saw it's just been a natural thing for me just to make things.
Was there a point when you thought, Oh, I have an interesting point of view or I'm good at this?
Or did you just did you just love it?
And it didn't.
None of that mattered.
Pretty much loved it.
And none of that mattered.
I think I got a really good art teacher when I was in fourth grade who encouraged me a lot, and I started doing things and she put it in shows for me and it was something I was very shy as a child, something that I could do and show off that I was good at and people would notice.
So.
Do you think that her her encouragement maybe influenced your trajectory in terms of not just becoming an artist, but also an educator?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I'm a friend with her on Facebook.
And so it's kind of fun.
She sees the things I do with my students and she sees the things I do with my pottery.
And she's encouraging me still.
So, yeah, you you went to school yourself for fine art.
Was it fine art education?
Art education.
Yes.
Did you know that you were going to kind of narrow down even further niche down even further into pottery at that point, or were you just open to the exploration of it all?
I had a very good potter teacher also in my undergrad who helped me find even more love for pottery in particular.
I decided to go back and get my master's in art after having taught two years and I met my husband and we were getting married and he had one year left to his graduate degree, and I found a college where he was there that enabled me to get a master's in one year.
And so I did that since it was going to be such a transitional time.
I got a master's in art ceramics in one year.
Now, tell me about how Linden Tree pottery came to be.
I read the story and I think it's so beautiful.
So explain that.
That's your business, right?
Linden Tree Pottery.
Tell me how that came to be.
A friend of mine that I had met in graduate school needed something for a friend and she knew I made pottery for a wedding, so I created that.
But then I had a filming kiln and then I had a lot of things.
So I decided to start my business as a part time and I decided to name it Linden Tree Pottery, because right after college I went and lived in Prague in the Czech Republic for a year, and one of the excursions I took was to Terezin, which is the concentration camp that was presented to the Red Cross as the wonderful thing that we're doing for the Jews and people.
Because look at how beautiful we have this still in the background was all the horrors that go along with concentration camps.
I was walking through the cemetery, it was spring and I just had this, the scent was overwhelming and it was so beautiful.
And I stopped somebody and asked them what it was and they said, It's the linden tree.
And it just reminded me there that there is beauty in the midst of horrors that we have in our life.
And so I want to bring beauty into the midst of our everyday lives and just things that people can enjoy.
And so that's why the Linden Tree has been very important to me since then.
I love that story.
So what obviously you want to to bring beauty when there is so much darkness all over all the time.
Yes.
So what inspires your work?
What is it?
Nature.
What?
What brings out that beauty?
I do like trees and leaves a lot.
I also really love stained glass windows and so I kind of try to incorporate those imagery in, but I also want people to use it.
So I want it to be utilitarian to the point that they're not afraid to use it.
So the beauty can be shared and used every day as well.
So those are some of the things that inspire me.
Tell me about your process when you are obviously when you're doing commission work, you have some guidelines, but when you are then filling the kiln, what do you love to make the most?
What goes along with that process of of getting started?
I like the cylinder, which is the basic thing for when you're throwing, you throw cylinders.
And I just think that simplicity of just that form is so versatile and so useful.
You can turn it into a teapot, you can turn it into a crock, you can turn it into a honey pot or a mug.
And so I can and then I can apply those images of the stained glass windows and the leaves to those cylinders.
So tell me about applying the images, because I'm looking at some of your pieces and they're so cool and they're unlike really any pottery I've ever seen in the very best way.
So tell me how you go about doing that.
I have a silhouette machine which cuts out the image for me, which is like a cricket.
Yes, just the silhouette.
And so then I will sometimes go out to churches and take pictures and bring them back and use the software and draw that particular window.
Other times I just get the pre made ones from the silhouette store and then I cut it out onto the contact sheet, the vinyl, and I stick it on and when I glaze then it does the masking for me and then I remove it and then I fire it.
So I like to do those in the wood fire kiln and in a salt fire kiln because the raw clay underneath where it was masked will get glazed as well they self glaze.
So then I don't have to worry about trying to get in those little spaces with the glaze.
Did you just come up with this process?
Is it something you researched or.
I take a community class over at PFW because they have the wood kilns and the soda kilns and I don't have that here.
And he taught one of the classes was doing some stuff like that with, with the masking.
And so then it was an aha moment, the way I could marry those things that I love together.
Yeah.
How do you think your students have inspired you and taught you along the way?
They are willing to experiment with things that I know aren't going to work, but then sometimes it works and so I learn from them that way too.
So I think and some of them get really very focused on one thing, and I allow them to focus in on that instead of trying to pull them out.
I like to see where that leads just because I myself as an artist, I go down one path for a while instead of having one assignment, one assignment, one assignment.
Do you see a next thing on the horizon for you?
Do you see kind of a path that you are interested in, in going down?
I'm going to finish teaching till I'm ready to retire in the next several years.
And while I'm doing finishing that and doing that and working that, I'm going to build my business so that when I retire, I can become a potter as my second career.
But I really want to keep teaching.
I'm thinking about having a teaching studio when that time comes.
But that's a ways down the way.
So I'd have to have a bigger space.
So my husband and I just bought a new house and I am trying to decorate it, which is why I'm aware that pottery ceramics are really popular right now.
Have you have you noticed that?
Or is it something that has always been and I'm just noticing it.
I think more people are are realizing this is an art form that I can afford.
I think some artists and some ceramicist have their process is such that they have to ask for a lot more.
But then there's the ones that I do that are more affordable and you can have that beautiful thing in your hands.
And I think instead of people going to the fine China, people are starting to gravitate towards the earthen ware and the stoneware pieces that are functional, more functional, more everyday functional than that.
And I think for me I enjoy collecting other potters pieces because I can enjoy something they've made and enjoy that every day.
If you weren't an artist, what would you be a realtor I love houses, I love interior spaces and I love I think part of that is I wanted to be an architect.
Initially, it didn't.
Math was too much.
So I love buildings and houses, especially old ones.
Do you think that that inspires some of your work too, in terms of windows, for sure?
Yeah, and that's probably the cylinder because it's a very simple geometric form and houses tend to be simple geometric forms put together.
Right.
And yeah.
Oh, very cool.
What is the hardest part of making your functional art?
Probably when it gets stuck in the kiln because my glaze ran and.
And the really thing I was really excited about is broken before I even get to use it or sell it.
That's probably the hardest part, but that's the most exciting part too, is opening the kiln.
What am I going to get?
Yeah, it's a chemical reaction and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it surprises you.
What do you hope your students take away from your class and and your guidance that they can, if they want to.
So it's not that I have the talent or I have the knack or but I can do it if I have to or if I want to.
It's not the I don't want them to grow up to be.
I can't even draw a straight line, its look at my cool line that I can make.
Who cares if it's straight or not.
So that's what I want.
We have to end there.
That's I mean, we'll end on a high note.
Thank you so much for having me.
And I need to stop by and, like, take a class from you because maybe I can't do it.
You can start with what you start with.
Okay.
Sounds good.
Thank you so much.
Be well.
thank you.
For more information, visit Linden Tree Pottery dot com.
I'm joined now by poet Erica Anderson Senter.
Erica, I'm excited.
I told you I did a deep dive last night.
I did a lot of poetry reading.
Thank you.
When did you start?
Well, I was going to say writing poetry, but when did you start writing in general?
Oh, my goodness.
I think that possibly you hear this from almost every artist you talk to, I would assume.
I don't remember a time when I didn't write, if that makes sense.
At all.
Like it wasn't very long ago.
I'm just going to jump right into this weird story Oh, my God, I love it.
A couple of years ago, my grandma just produced I call her my Nina just in case for conversation.
She produced this piece of paper that she had since laminated, and she was like, Here's your first story ever that I ever remember you writing.
And I was like, When did I write it?
And she said, it was probably like the summer between kindergarten and first grade.
She said that everywhere I went, I always had a notebook and a pencil and that I would say that I was the author and illustrator.
So I have since given up visual art, concentrating on concentrating on the written word.
But yeah, so I guess I've been making stories since I was just a little tiny child.
Did you know all throughout your schooling, obviously before higher education, that that that's what you were going to pursue?
Did you just know that that was in, you?
No, not at all.
In fact, in high school, I didn't even I wasn't even going to like, go for honors English.
I was just like I just don't.
And my English teacher came around one day and she gave me the form and she was like, some of us don't have a choice.
So she saw it before I did.
Obviously, English teachers are great at that.
Yeah.
But no, I had wanted to be a politician.
I wanted to be a police officer.
I wanted to be a veterinarian.
I wanted to be a wife of a rich man.
You know, like all of these things.
Yeah.
And it really wasn't until I until 2010 that I thought I should do something more with writing.
So when I was doing my deep dive last night, I was reading so much of your work and thinking how this feels so beautifully personal.
Thank you.
And I feel that has to feel really vulnerable.
Is it hard to to get to that place or is it just so is it is it that catharsis that you're after?
So poets kind of hide.
Some poets kind of hide behind a shield of where we say sometimes the speaker of the poem.
Right.
Isn't really the poet.
Right.
I'm going to go ahead and say the speaker of the poem is the poet.
Okay.
It did take a long time to trust that the work wasn't going to be judged like, ooh, Erica Oof!
That was, you know, that kind of thing.
I am a very emotional human, anyway.
And so it makes sense for me to write the way I do.
Steeped in grief and loss and, like, over arching humanity and dragging my knuckles because I'm so sad, that kind of thing.
But there is an element of I don't want people to pity the speaker of the poem.
Yeah.
Like, I want my consumer, my reader, to be like, oh, she understands this loss because of this image.
And I understand how she feels because of this image.
Yes.
There are little tips and tricks you pick up along the way, like Mary Oliver in her book, A Poetry Handbook.
She talks really deeply about the sound of words.
And this isn't something that you go around being like, oh, that's a you know, that is.
But she talks about the difference between stone and rock.
Right.
How they're basically the same thing, but how those two words have different connotations because of the hard stop at the end of rock.
Yes.
And then how stone, you know, maybe you envision like a little river stone with water going along the top and with rock, you know, you're thinking like boulder and sharp edges and so those little things you just pick up as you read and feast and communicate in the poetry world.
I love that.
I love that.
Okay, so tell me about being published.
How does that or does it reframe how you go about things?
Sometimes I forget and I'll be like, oh yeah, I have a book.
This is kind of a big deal.
Yeah.
So it is kind of twofold.
And I think both things exist and that I just live my life thinking like, oh, you know, I'm just Erica.
I'm just the poet.
I'm the writer, whatever.
And it's.
And where I forget.
And then there's the other part where it's like, Wow, this big accomplishment is a thing that I've been working towards.
And then somewhere in between, there's this massive sphere of pressure where it's like, Oh, you have another book that you're working on.
When's the next book coming out?
And I'm just like, I mean, I'm writing every week so soon.
So it changes things sometimes all of the time or none of the time.
How about that?
For a very ambiguous answer.
Thats a very poetic answer, I appreciate it.
So I guess that that brings me to the question, what is the process like?
I mean, do you have to write every day?
Is there pressure to write something good every day?
Or is it just a matter of like, get something out there?
What does that look like for you?
So I do not write every day, but I do carve out time every single week with a writing group.
Community is super important to me and probably to a lot of artists, but I typically save Thursday nights for my writing night.
So I have a group of other poets in town and right now we decided to take a class.
So we're all in a class writing about family, which is very difficult to do.
Talk about stuff you're not really supposed to talk about, and I'm trying to make art about it.
Yeah, right.
So my process really, really, basically is just carve out time.
I had a teacher in grad school who who would say, you know, everybody's waiting for the muse to visit.
And he would say, she'll visit if she knows your office hours.
That's brilliant, like you just have to be consistent.
And so Thursday nights are my night to work.
And it sounds crazy to say like, Oh yeah, I just have one night for it.
But that's not really true because I read all the time.
And, you know, I communicate and I write emails and make little notes.
And so I'm always doing the work.
But Thursday's kind of when it, you know, cyclones up into a thing.
So when you're writing, do you have an objective?
Is there is there something that you hope the reader will get out of it?
Or is it is it just to get it out of you or is it different every time?
Yeah, I would say it's probably different every time.
I kind of have a philosophy that if you know where the poem is going before you start, you've already ruined the poem.
Oh, that makes sense.
I like to to visualize a poem as an organic, like, magical creature, and that it makes its own way.
So I have an idea.
And then as I continue to write, I decide to take the cobblestone alley instead of, you know, the sidewalk or whatever.
And it just grows into whatever it wants to be at the time.
And I mean, it's a little like hippie dippy, supernatural like vibe, but that's truly how I believe a piece comes about.
Yeah.
On its own.
Yeah.
Just like a little vessel.
So that being the case, what is the hardest part of writing poetry.
Revision.
Yeah, because you know, you're, like, feeling the magic and you're in the moment and writing these things down, and it's all so precious.
Yeah.
And then, like, tomorrow, you're like, Oh, my God.
Why did I.
Why did I do use repetition 100 times?
Like I could do this in 20?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, the whole kill your darlings kind of thing.
That is that is difficult.
Yeah.
When I was editing for my book, there were poems we had to cut, and I'm just like, But are you sure?
I really like that one, doesn't fit the theme, you know, doesn't fit the overall arch of, you know, what you're trying to say or whatever.
So yeah, revision.
And sometimes you just don't want to go back to it.
You're like, But I liked it the way I wrote it.
Yes.
It's like doesn't work.
So yes, I think that there are people everywhere right now going, yeah, yeah, get it, get it.
Because regardless of your line of work, there's there are those things that get you.
They're part of you.
Yeah.
What is the best part?
Okay, so there's a moment during poetry readings where, like, I'll be performing because, you know, some, some element of it is definitely a performance to be performing a piece and it'll be like quiet and like, Oh yeah, people get it.
People are like, feeling this thing that I've been trying to say.
Like this grief presented itself or this loss presented itself in this particular way to me, and it's resonating and it's not like good job Erica.
Yeah, it's like, Oh, this art is hitting.
This humanity, this feeling, this tradition of being alive is heavy on our shoulders right now.
And it's it's probably that moment.
And I hope that this may be what's happening with the book or with the pieces that get picked up and that I don't have to rely on poetry readings to do that, that I'm hoping that the art that's gone forth is hitting with people in that way, too.
Well, it's certainly hit with me.
I had a great time reading your work last night and will continue to do so.
Yeah, it just resonates.
There was there's such a truth and humanity that you you articulate so beautifully.
So thank you for your work and thank you for taking the time.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate the opportunity.
For more information, visit Erica Anderson Senter dot com.
Our thanks to Camela Johnson and Erica Anderson Senter.
Be sure to join us next week for Arts in Focus.
You can catch this and other episodes at PBS Fort Wayne dot org or through our app.
In the meantime, enjoy something beautiful.
Physics of a Daughter in Survival In this universe water is only water and does not dilute whiskey.
In another, there are 116 ways to pet a dog.
The way he and this one kicks my small schnauzer does not appear.
Two universes over, house fires consume wood some metals cans of food, school photos but never drunk, Dads.
Four universes under.
He teaches me tiny toothed to fight gravity, to ride a bike, to fall down and bleed in our universe.
Please, can he still be fishing for channel cats off the back of the boat?
In the universe adjacent he calls me to check.
Hey, how much salt in that one chicken recipe?
Why couldn't we have loved harder in this universe?
More robustly?
Why can't I forgive?
Let the red maple burn, then drop its leaves.
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