Meet Rena Hamilton: Potter & Teaching Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rena Hamilton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rena, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
Balance has always been a struggle for me. I am in my 21st year as a secondary school art educator, mostly all the while maintaining my own personal studio practice, and at times a pretty rigorous commitment to outdoor, athletic pursuits, home and garden projects, and trying to not neglect my partner and furr-family too much, too often. The reality of the unsustainable pace of trying to juggle all of this is starting to set in. I am finally recognizing that I can’t do it all, all of the time.   I still don’t have the balance figured out but I am learning how to say no more often and trying to get better at identifying the small things to let go. One example is consciously becoming more vocal and encouraging of more active participation from members in the Flagstaff Potters’ Guild I formed in 2011 (sharing the responsibility of event planning, website updates, etc). Being willing to ask for help, though it still pains me a bit, I hope will get easier with practice.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
While most of my work is created for utility and daily use, the artistic considerations of form, function, and surface run deep. I like to refer to my pottery as “pots with content”. My work is unique in that I combine a variety of surface treatments; free-hand, inlaid, drawings, slip trailing, and silkscreened underglaze imagery. Additionally, I often fire these highly embellished works in my custom built wood-soda fueled kiln creating a not often seen rich depth of multi-layered surface. Firing a woodfueled kiln takes an incredible amount of specialized knowledge, a lot more time, and oodles more physical labor than simply placing pieces in an electric or gas fueled kiln. Woodfired works are most known for the earthy natural flashing and woodash accumulation that imbue a unique beauty to the wares. In the case of my work, it also risks masking the laboriously created surface designs with this natural woodash glaze. These layers of surface provide a rich, somewhat mysterious, story of creation. Complex work that you really have to live with and ponder. Most recently, I am excited about a small series of oversized 20” platters I started at the beginning of the COVID stay at home order last March. Early on, I called it a covid induced artist-in-residence. Though there are many downsides to this pandemic, I appreciated the quiet, intense time of reflection. I think part of getting older makes us stew on our impact, passions, and purpose with a bit more focus. The large platter series was an opportunity for me to really push scale and surface with a focus on the natural world, conservancy, and ecological relationships. Going back to the focus of utility of my work, I feel that pieces of this grand size, speak to serving, community, and celebration. This sense of community is something that has been greatly reduced during this colliding period of the covid pandemic, the social justice movement, and the escalating climate emergency. I’ve been studying more on ways in which celebration sustains activism. Our nation is so divided on so many important issues but focusing on our differences will not bring us together to create change. I believe there is more that unites us than divides and sometimes simply having a meal (on beautifully handcrafted serving pieces) is the best way to start those hard conversations and share a bit of joy while bringing us closer together. I think it’s starting to come full circle back to those early settlement house roots.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Northern Arizona is a place of incredible natural beauty. We have an abundance of hiking and mountain bike trails in the the Dry Lake Hills of Flagstaff and redrocks of Sedona. We are also within a short drive to several National Monuments including Wupatki, Walnut Canyon, Sunset Crater, and of course the Grand Canyon National Park. I highly recommend an overnight at the rim watching the sunset and sunrise over the canyon. No photo can ever do it justice. Flagstaff has a charming historic downtown with cute galleries and delicious eateries. Gallery stops would include West of the Moon and The Artists’ Gallery. Must-do restaurants include Pizzicletta, MartAnne’s Burrito Palace for breakfast, and Brix for a special evening affair. The Museum of Northern Arizona is the premier institution celebrating and educating on regional indigenous artifacts, natural history, and geography of the Colorado Plateau. They have an excellent resale gallery of contemporary native jewelry and craft.   

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I grew up as an only child in an urban environment but my mother kept me in good supply of sketchbooks, paints, and drawing materials. I had no idea clay would be my lifelong medium but I was a maker/artist for as long as I can recall. Hand stitching outfits for my barbie dolls in 3rd grade and painting on denim jeans and canvas sneakers I can remember as early as 5th grade.  I was fortunate as a latch-key kid of the 80s to get connected with our community settlement house. It was there that I was exposed to the arts with a dedicated “art room” at the center, artworks with strong social justice themes hanging throughout, and performative pieces us campers would develop and share at the conclusion of each summer camp session. Forming relationships with adults who themselves had an appreciation for the arts, as well as their love and encouragement of me and my early artistic pursuits, created a strong foundation. I would be remiss to not mention my generous partner, Robert Hamilton, who shares his time with my studio pursuits and supports the use of our walkout basement for my dedicated studio use. Clay is quite an unforgiving, demanding, mistress. I also want to give a big shout out of appreciation to a couple of great friends, Bryan Banks who flew in from NY to lend his engineer brain, and Jason Bohnert, a fellow Arizona potter who helped design and construct my custom built wood fueled pottery kiln. They helped build this special kiln just steps from my home studio. I highly recommend you check out Jason’s work as well, @jasonbohnertpottery

Website: http://www.renahamilton.com/
Instagram: @renahamiltonpottery
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/renahamiltonpottery
Other: https://www.flagstaffpottersguild.com/

Image Credits
Photo of artist with butterfly platter, credit to Robert Hamilton Photo of artist with Lock and Key platter, credit to Janeece Henes all other photos by artist