Who is RK Delta Pottery?
Hi!
I’m Read Karsell,
the guy behind
RK Delta Pottery!
I’m excited to share a little bit about me and my art! What you can expect from me is a very honest person who loves working with clay and exploring what can be done with it!
WHO AM I?
My name is Read Karsell and I am from Rochester, Minnesota. During the day, I am a Spanish teacher with a K-12 license. I currently teach high school and have a blast every day. I graduated from St. OIaf College in Northfield, Minnesota with a bachelors in Spanish and Education with minors in Linguistics and Latin American Studies. Education is something that has interested me for a long time. My first job was teaching swimming when I was in 7th grade. I continued on to teach theater camps and then be a room lead at a summer child care program. By the time I left high school, I’d had many amazing teachers who all inspired me to be an educator, so I double majored in education and Spanish. Along the way, I added linguistics which was what really hooked me into the intricacies of language and then Latin American Studies which taught me so much of the history that society tends to hide. All this came together to help me be a well rounded Spanish educator.
My Start in Pottery
I started pottery in high school when I took the most popular class offered - ceramics. I remember I missed one of the first days of class which also happened to be the day my teacher introduced wheel throwing. So, the next day, I jumped right in so I wouldn’t miss another minute. I’d seen videos of people throwing and it looked so cool, and, no lies, easy. If you’ve ever thrown (spun and shaped clay on a wheel), you know it is NOT easy.
As I sat down for my first attempt, my friends and Mrs. Connolly gave me quick instructions but it really was about just trying and getting the feel of throwing. After some work, I ended up with a cute, short walled bowl no wider than 2 inches and less than 1 inch tall. Today, I know that I barely made something. I had achieved opening the clay (making a well in the lump) and got the wall thin enough and tall enough so it resembled a functional item instead of a lump of clay. BUT LET ME TELL YOU. In that moment, I had done the impossible. My friends were sooo mad that I hadn’t even seen the demonstration, yet successfully made a piece while they were still trying to center their clay.
The Next Step
In college, I knew that I had to continue with ceramics. I’d only touched the surface in high school and to continue on in college would afford me the opportunity to really hone my skills as well as add technical knowledge to my craft. St. Olaf only offers two semester long classes of ceramics, so I took one my first year and one my second year. I studied under Professor Paul Briggs who pushed me to make mistakes and work outside the perfect. I was so proud that I could throw well and was starting at a level higher than beginners ceramics that I wasn’t moving past what I knew. While I believe that I will need to work on that forever, I began to find myself creating new shapes, slowing down, and being more intentional or completely unintentional with design. I began to cut my pieces up to see how well they were made. I began to carve pieces instead of leaving them as they were when they left the wheel. I began to challenge gravity and explore non-functional pieces.
My Signature and Name
My signature is an “R” a “K” then a triangle. The story behind it is a cute one. I was on a pottery field trip in high school at NCC - Northern Clay Center and at the end of our time there, the educator asked us to sign our pieces with something distinguishing since often times people share initials. So I added a triangle. I’ve honestly never liked triangles and still don’t but I LOVE it in my signature. I began to sign all my pieces this way.
When my grandmother saw it she asked why there was a delta at the end of my signature. I explained the backstory but also really liked the sound of it, so I adopted RK Delta Pottery as my name! It has a much nicer ring to it than “RK Delta Triangle.”
My Approach
“Art isn’t the starting idea or the final product, but the unique things that happen in between the beginning and end.”
It was in the St. Olaf ceramics studio that I heard a quote which has really defines my connection with art. I have never found art to be a place where I am able to express deep meaning. I connect with my work and create with from inspirations and feelings, but I have never been the person who can express (for example) my coming out as gay using pottery.
What I create is unique and can tell a story. The over arching intention in my work finds a focus on the exploration and beauty of what can be done with clay and all the process allows. My art is the fun and unpredictability in creating.
Thank you for taking the time to read and look for more blogs in the future! My plan is for future blogs to focus on what I am working on, so stop by periodically to see updates, hear about things I’ve been learning, and see the fun work I’ve been doing!
-Read Karsell