Nick Joerling
Nick Joerling is a full-time studio potter who has maintained a studio
in Penland, North Carolina, since the
mid-1980’s. He received a B.A. in
History from the University of Dayton, Ohio, and an M.F.A. in Ceramics
from Louisiana State University. He has taught in craft programs
nationally, been widely reviewed and exhibited, and is represented in
public and private collections. Nick’s work is wheelthrown, altered,
stoneware.
Artist Statement
I make pots as much from a drawing sensibility as a pottery one.
Daydreaming with a pencil. Not drawing as rendering but simply
doodling, then working hard to get that drawing to function.
Profile line is therefore a strong attraction, a strong dictate, as are
the smaller spaces within spaces. And of course that sense of
animation. My pot reference is most often you and I, our
bodies. It's where my cues come from: dance, people seated on a
park bench, the cleavage that forms on the inside of a bent
elbow. But I want to stay in the pot's world -- too literal and
the pots seem deflated. In my studio what I hope for are pots that have
qualities of sensuality, compassion, humor, and risk.