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Join date: May 16, 2021

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Although I've been creating my whole life, ceramics are relatively new to me. Ironically I ALWAYS wanted a pottery wheel, it looked like so much fun. I begged and begged but it was not meant to be and I let it go. I did start in with polymer clays which freaked me out a bit as leaft on plastic they were disolve it like acid and I always wondered what it was doing to my hands. But still the fun colors allowed for bright designs and I baked away in my oven many sculptures broaches and necklaces and earrings. We moved around, and drawing was always my go to. I maintainted I was never bored as long as I had paper and pencil. When we settled in Arizona, I was in middle school and although I'd been exclusively drawing for years the art options at the schools seemed limitless and there were so many art festivals around. Attending on in Tempe, the Fountain Hills Art Festival, I stumbled upon Jennifer McCurdy who's brilliant work with cutting pottery leaves whimsical creations that seem to flair and float like a birds wings. I was mesmerized and wouldn't you know that semester the school offered ceramic sculpture to its advanced students. So I signed up for it, and that semester I got my hands muddy even if I didn't feel that I ultimately took anything away from it, I didn't feel more educated as ceramist and I learned if nothing else you don't need creditials to be and instructor. I decided art classes weren't for me, I clung to the self taught thing and decided classes were cheating. And I refused to listen to anyone elses's instruction.

I actually all but gave up my art work for years. I was an honor roll student, I was in all sorts of activities and clubs and performances. I sang, I played piano, guitar and drums, I acted in plays, I rode horses and played basketball, but I stopped creating art. That was when the accident happened.

New Years Eve 2006 I was stopped at a redlight with my litte brother in the car when a drunk driver almost cost us our lives. It took an hour to get us cut out of the metal shell of the car that was left and were airvacted to a local hospital where miraculously I only had minor bruises and cuts and a concusion, while my brother was a bit more gravely hurt. We were released and a week later I got on a plane going anywhere with a girl who's cat I'd adopted just six months prior (he actually lived with our family until he passed quietly in his sleep just two weeks ago. My youngest brother took him up to the mountains to spread his ashes yesterday.) I had no idea where Guam was, I actually thought it was apart of Hawaii, I didn't realize Hawaii was just the half way point. It was an extremely long flight, and when I disembarked the plane, I was on a tropical island off the coast of Japan with a backpack of clothes and phone that no longer worked I was so far from the US. In hind sight, if it were my kid doing this I might be inclined to panick but I know now that it was simply meant to be. I spent the first two weeks exploring locally, finding all the local shops and stops and learning about the history, hanging out with japanese tourists and playing volleyball on the beach, but after two weeks I wondered how long I would last and debated cutting my adventure short. On a particularly slow night at work, I was counting down the minutes until I could return home, and started to get up to head to the bar when a group of handsome miltiary men came in. I could tell by their civilian uniforms (white shirts, cargo shorts, and backpacks) and decided to leave before they noticed me so I didn't have to talk to them. As I got up one saw me and smiled shyly, I pretended not to notice, but my shoe got stuck, when I looked up he was there helping to free my ankle and it was like something out of Cinderella, a fairy tale, time stopped and music played and destiny played out between our eyes and souls....and it made me want to puke. We spent literally hours talking like we hadn't talked in years, but then as he was leaving I wasn't sure about giving out my number, I even started to give him a wrong number when he stopped me and gave me *his* that way the ball was in my court. A few days later I called to take him up on his offer to show me the island. He surprised me on my birthday the next day at my work on his way to the hospital where he worked, and we made plans to hang out for the first time. It started with meeting at the beach, kayaking through the waves, and picnicing in the sand with friends, but instead of calling it quits that evening, we proceeded to extend the adventures with hiking through the jungles, finding hidden waterfalls, caves, and chapels long since claimed by the jungle-- it felt like something out of a story. My thesis for one of my classes was on animal licensure and he happened to volunteer at the animal shelter I'd been looking for for weeks, so he introduced me to where he volunteered. He took me to the local festivities and we lived in island bliss on the date that never ended. A few weeks into our relationship, he showed me newspaper cuttings of articles on him from PNW newspapers spottlighting his skills as a football player and potter, and others spotlighting his exhibits from his ceramics classes. It seemed silly to even think it but I wondered if I'd get to do pottery with him some day.


I'd like to say it happened immediately after we got back to the mainland, but that would be false. It was a few years later still sitting in our small rented house with three toddlers that I first assembled Ty's collection of glazes and painstakingly detailed images on a few of his wares. His skeptism fleeing him as soon as they cooled realizing they were perhaps the best pieces he'd completed to date with little help of careful glazing. Within a year we were invited to the Seattle Home and Garden Show and year after that our first Juried Art Exhibit at the Coos Art Museum in Oregon. We really thought we had a chance. We had all the hope in the world. Then one morning on his way to work at the hospital three miles from our house, Tyler was hit by a driver texting and not paying attention. In a split second, Tyler was incapacitated and bed ridden for over a year. In a split second we weighed whether pottery had been a foolish and expensive pipe dream. During this uncertain time, when things looked particularly bleek was when I really started gearing up to try. Ty has been able to throw in less than twenty years, creations that have taken masters lifetimes and I've been at this for about 5 and can only hope to be half as good as him in that time frame.

Lark Sundsmo

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Predominately self educated artist and urban homesteader

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