By Chillia Zoll
What can I tell you about being a builder? I can tell you that I love to toss numbers around in my head and figure out how to stretch lines into curves. A stationary nail connected to a string and tied to a pencil sets an easy arc to any piece of wood. This is usually how I start dreaming up rounded buildings and figuring out how wind, gravity, sunlight and snow will react.
Carpentry in Canada seems always to include late Falls in trenches, pouring concrete foundations. Gravel slipping into my wet carpenter’s pouch, rusting my common nails, losing my drill bits, and ruining my tape measure. Construction means numb fingers, blossoming pain tolerance and callused feelings.
Frankly, carpentry is a love hate relationship. I love feeling strong. I love knowing that I am capable and can create anything that I dream up. I hate knowing that math isn’t easy for me and I hate that my 5’ 11 slender woman’s frame that seems graceful outside of work seems like a handicap when I am trying to pass up timbers to someone above me.
I built a tiny house. In big bold letters on her side, she is called Jumping Creek Pottery. She has a hip roof, an eyebrow dormer and stained glass windows. This little green tiny house was the beginning of my transition out of carpentry and into pottery. I started building my tiny house boutique in April 2014 and was set up to sell pots in July 2014.
Pottery provides me with a constant fluid joy unlike anything else in my life. I wake up every morning excited to learn, grow and improve at creating with clay. I love that with compression, tension and miles of practice under my belt, I can form bowls that nourishing food is lovingly placed in.
On Tuesday Febuary 10, I am launching a Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1240474120/jumping-creek-pottery-studio-expansion. I am raising $25,000 to invest in equipment and streamline my studio. Making this campaign has shown me that building homes, throwing pottery or creating a storyline for Kickstarter, are about forming a process that you can share with others. Turning my ideas and dreams into something tangible.
When I dream of my future, I see the space I will be living in. It is not the little heritage house I own in downtown Revelstoke. It is a small buoyant dwelling of timbers and windows. The contrast of mechanical point loads and cantilevers is woven into a chorus of curved beams and braces. This home boasts curves of a wooden boat, dances gracefully through summer storms and soothes the shy winter light into its farthest corners.
With each pot I throw, I think of this house. The elements of light and balance flood through my hands and into the work I make. I create the relationship between my hands and the physical environment around me. I am the creator of my journey and so far I like this road I am on.
