Hi friends.
Thanks for being here. I truly wouldn't be typing this if it weren't for the support and encouragement from my incredible circle. You know who you are <3
In case you don't know me yet, I'm Sylvi Roy, and I live in Portland, Maine with Francine, my sweet, chirpy, green-eyed calico kitty. I dig knitting, card games, and my jungle of plants. I am at my happiest when I have my headphones in, listening to an audiobook or true crime podcast, deep into a creative project of some sort.
I took a ceramics class when I was at Boston University (circa 2004-ish), and another at Maine College of Art in 2016. But I realized my real, true love for pottery in January 2022 when I joined a class at Portland Pottery while I was going through a major transitional period. It truly gave me life when it felt like nothing else could. The practice has come to relax and recharge me, but can also be wildly frustrating at times. It has taught me how to let things go, in more ways than just the clay in my hands.
There is such satisfaction in being able to mash up an overworked lump of mud into another ball of clay, to later be molded into something even better and more beautiful. Each mistake, each hand slip, each piece that doesn't work out the way I hoped breeds new knowledge to put to use on the next one.
Pottery has shown me that while things can get really messy, they have the potential to turn out so beautifully in the end, even amidst their quirks and flaws. A rogue fingerprint, an accidental nick, a weird glaze bubble or unintentional drip. Sometimes things crack; sometimes they break.
More often than not, things turn out differently than anticipated, but I find ways to love them just the same And sometimes I love them even more than I could have imagined, because they taught me something. And sometimes, I have let them go.
Such is life.
Each piece on this page has spent a solid amount of time in my hands. I know every millimeter of each piece. Each ball of mud gets molded into a shape intended to become a mug, pipe, or jar. It then goes through many more processes that take endless patience and care (drying, trimming, drying more, attaching handles, carving designs, drying more, bisque firing, glaze dipping) before it comes out of its second and final firing, all glazed up and ready to be loved.
I hope you'll love these pieces of art/my heart as much as I do. Or at least a fraction would be alright, too.
Thanks for all of the support, near and far. I love my people.
Love, peace, and chicken grease,
♥ Sylvi
Boston University - College of Fine Arts, Class of '06
Sent from my lovely laptop