By Hannah Rivers
Dec. 19, 2016
What is art? Is it a painting hung up on a wall, a beautiful ballet, a carefully crafted poem? Who is an artist? Someone who creates pretty things, who draws or sculpts or takes pictures? To Michelle Burford, a Californian native living in Lincoln, there is no one definition. It is not black and white; there are no rules. An artist herself, Burford considers art to be the beauty and joy of life.
“There is an art to construction, there is an art to restaurant management, there is an art to everything,” she said. “I think we are all artists. It’s just how we choose to display that.”
For Burford, pottery is her main passion, though she’s always been artistic. Since she was young she’s been working with her hands — drawing and making books and creating things. Her family wasn’t very artistic, so she never thought making art a significant part of her life was even a possibility. It wasn’t until Burford took a pottery class at a community college in California that something clicked — although she didn’t decide to pursue it until much later.
After coming to Lincoln five years ago, Burford found herself with too much time on her hands and a need to do something constructive. By chance, she found a pottery class online at Down Under Pottery. This was three years ago. Since then, her passion for the craft has grown immensely. Now Burford apprentices there, working for the studio’s owner, Kathleen Grossman, by teaching two classes a week and doing general work (cleaning, making glazes, loading and unloading the kiln).
She also works a few days a week at Blue Orchid as a server. The rest of the time she’s making pottery — spending as many hours as she can at the studio. This, Burford claims, is when she can do her best, when she has the most energy.
“I can work in the studio for hours and hours and hours, day after day, and not feel drained,” she said.
Her body will hurt, since the work is physically draining, but emotionally it’s fulfilling. Burford is used to giving so much energy to her job, so this is a first for her.
“I feel like working with my hands and creating art is replenishing to me,” she said. “It seems like it’s a more sustainable livelihood for me.”
To Burford, spending 40 or 50 hours a week making pots would be ideal. She knows things will change and that she cannot anticipate what is to come, but creating things with her hands is a part of who she is.
“Sometimes I feel like more than an artist,” she said. “I am a craftsman.”
While it’s a challenge for artists to make a living, Burford is confident that she could make it work. There are a lot of ways she could make money just doing pottery, but she thinks the most important part of the equation is being smart about it.
“I think I would have to get creative, like any unconventional job,” she said. “I think today you have to be creative. You have to figure out what works best for you. You have to take opportunities that come and make them something worth it.”
In today’s world, buying local is becoming increasingly popular. More and more people are supporting artisans and craftsmen, which makes it a good time to be one. And ceramics, especially, is very versatile. Burford could do lots of things with it: make tiles or sink basins or have a website and sell mugs. Many people are doing just that, but it’s not a great way to get rich quick. Burford realizes this and isn’t worried by it at all. She doesn’t need much in her life; all she wants is to do her art as much as she can.
Pottery is something Burford could do everyday because it has so many disparate stages. When she goes into the studio, she’s not doing the same thing everyday. One day is a throwing day, the next a trimming day, another is a glazing day and then there’s the clean up.
“I think that’s why I like pottery,” she said. “I tend to get, not bored, but slightly disinterested kind of quickly.”
Burford is an ever-changing woman with an aversion for continuity, which is why her work is kind of eclectic. Currently though, it is focused on the theme of simplicity. She favors a look that is nicely crafted, clean-cut and simple.
Unlike other artists, Burford isn’t trying to make a statement with her art.
“Sometimes I think we perceive artists as trying to tell this story or trying to display this part of society,” she said. “And I don’t feel like that’s what I put into my work.”
Instead, Burford enjoys making functional work, things that people use in their daily lives — such as plates, bowls, pitchers and mugs. This is one of the reasons why she’s pursuing pottery: because it’s a type of art she can mentally get behind. While she appreciates others forms of art, as well as the artists that create them, Burford would rather make things that people need.
“Not like a nice mug is a necessity, but we have to drink and we have to drink from something,” she said. “It might as well be from something beautiful.”
Another characteristic that differentiates Burford’s art from that of other ceramicists is the intended human interaction. She has shown at galleries before and has participated in some First Fridays, but it’s not her preferred method. She doesn’t want her work sitting on a pillar, illuminated by a bright light, on display for people to look at as they walk by.
“I want my stuff to be picked up and held and filled with their favorite drink and used and loved,” she said. “I want you to open your cabinet and get a little feeling when you use your favorite mug.”
Burford has enjoyed selling her work at various places, but she isn’t exactly sure where she wants to go with her art because it’s all still very new to her. This is why she doesn’t have a website yet. Instead, for her primary means of self-advertising, she uses Instagram, and, more recently, Etsy.
One thing that Burford does have an interest in is restaurant pottery. Food is another big passion of hers and she loves pairing the two together. Burford is very excited about making things for nice restaurants; in fact, Blue Orchid has asked her to make 20 stir-fry plates for them. It’s a perfect opportunity for her to work at perfecting the craft of making large quantities of dinnerware.
If that goes well and Burford decides it’s something she wants to pursue, then she would make a website dedicated to that. But right now she’s still an amateur. Since she’s still learning things, she’s hesitant to make a website. Burford doesn’t want to give people subpar work. There are a lot of intricacies involved in making pottery, so at the moment she’s just taking things slow. Her plans for the immediate future involve setting up her Etsy page, continuing to sell her pieces at Stella Collective and figuring out what works best for her. Eventually, she wants to have her own studio — perhaps one in a little garage, with fresh air and windows that let in natural light.
Somehow, even with Burford’s obsession with pottery, she finds time to eat and listen to music. Besides Blue Orchid, she enjoys going to Yia Yia’s and Banhwich. But more than anything she loves specific things from specific places: the happy hour at Hiro 88, the poke bowl at LeadBelly, the vermicelli noodles at Vung Tau. Burford grew up eating Chinese and Japanese food, supplying her with a preference for Asian food that hasn’t yet diminished.
“I just like the flavor profiles more,” she said. “I think American food is really heavy a lot of times. It’s all burgers. I’m not always trying to eat a burger.”
For music, Burford prefers soul tunes from the 40s, 50s and 60s — artists like Billie Holiday, Etta James and Sam Cooke. She used to always look forward to the next great album, but then she changed gears and began catching up on music from the past. Recently though, she’s been listening to podcasts.
Not one to choose favorites, Burford had a hard time deciding which country she’d like to travel to most. Eventually she chose Japan, specifically Tokyo. She knows she would love all of the food there; in addition, their culture of simplicity and care seems like something she would really enjoy.
When Burford isn’t working at Blue Orchid, making pottery, eating at one of her favorite restaurants, listening to a podcast or dreaming of travelling to Tokyo, you can probably find her watching Gilmore Girls. Right now she is watching the old seasons of the show, which is something that came as a surprise to her. She thought she would watch a few episodes and get sick of it, but she fell in love with it.
“It’s a quaint little show,” she said. “It’s a little fantastical. Everything is just perfect. It makes you think that things can be wonderful….and nothing bad ever happens.”
All of the problems in Gilmore Girls are resolved quickly and easily. It’s a feel-good kind of show.
“Especially through the winter you need to watch a show that is happy,” she said.
Hannah Rivers is one of KZUM’s tireless fall interns.
