Clay Calm: Pottery for Wellness

I have a confession. The first time I sat down at a pottery wheel, I was terrible. Not "charmingly imperfect" terrible. I mean clay-flying-across-the-room, water-in-my-hair, "is it supposed to wobble like that?" terrible.

And I was completely hooked.

Pottery at The Table

Because here's what I discovered in those first messy hours: when your hands are covered in clay, your brain finally shuts up. You can't scroll. You can't ruminate. You can't rehearse that conversation you had in 2009. You are just there, with the mud, breathing. For someone who has personally navigated trauma, mental health challenges, and seasons of feeling profoundly disconnected, that kind of presence wasn't just relaxing. It was medicine.

I've spent my career as a coach, trauma-informed consultant, and community builder, walking alongside people affected by trauma, mental health struggles, and interpersonal violence. I know professionally, and personally, how powerful it is to shape something beautiful from what feels like brokenness. So when clay found me in 2021, it didn't feel like a hobby. It felt like every thread of my life's work finally braiding together.

Learning to Center (Literally and Otherwise)

Since 2021, I've been training with wonderful Rochester-based potters, including Alexis Zaccariello and Jesus Rodriguez, who taught me not only how to center clay but how to stay patient when it absolutely refuses to cooperate. (The clay is a very honest teacher. Humbling, even.)

That artistic foundation, blended with decades of therapeutic and trauma-informed work, became the heart of my practice. And I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to keep it to myself.

The Grants That Opened the Door

In 2023, I received a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC), followed by a Minnesota State Arts Board grant in 2024, both supporting my work bringing creative expression to individuals in transition.

That work confirmed what I suspected all along: pottery is a gentle, empowering medium for people who often feel overlooked in traditional arts spaces. Whether someone is rebuilding after violence, navigating grief, or simply feeling disconnected from community, clay offers an entry point to creativity that requires no prior experience. Only a willingness to touch the earth and try.

Here's the thing about pottery: it's expensive. Wheels, kilns, clay, glazes, studio fees. The people who could benefit most from this grounding, embodied art form are often the ones with the least access to it. Grant funding makes it possible to change that, bringing clay to people at no cost to participants.

Clay Calm: Community Pottery for Wellness

That brings me to the project I'm completing now. Clay Calm: Community Pottery for Wellness, funded by a SEMAC grant, brings the therapeutic benefits of hand-built pottery to local nonprofits, offering a creative outlet for stress management, mindfulness, self-expression, and community connection.

Through this grant, I've offered sessions at the Women's Shelter and Support Center, the Jeremiah Program, Three Rivers Community Action, The Table, and with nonprofit leader groups. Each session brings clay to people who are carrying a lot: healing from violence, parenting through hard seasons, or leading organizations through chronic stress and burnout.

Here's what a session looks like: I bring the clay, the tools, the glazes, and a whole lot of enthusiasm. Participants bring themselves, exactly as they are. We slow down, get our hands in the earth, and build something together. Then the pieces are fired and returned to their makers.

There is something profound about holding a solid, beautiful, useful object and knowing: I made this. If I can make this, what else can I make?

Why Clay Works

Healing doesn't just happen in our heads. Trauma lives in the body, and so does recovery. Clay is inherently somatic. It asks for your hands, your breath, your attention. It's forgiving (mess up? Wedge it and start over). It's grounding in the most literal sense, because you are quite actually touching earth.

And when you do it in community, sitting around a table with other humans, laughing at lopsided bowls and admiring each other's glazes, something else happens too. Connection. Courage. The quiet realization that we are all works in progress, and that's exactly as it should be.

This project is not just about art. It's about connection, courage, and community.

Let's Get Messy Together

If you're part of a nonprofit, shelter, or recovery center serving folks who could use a little mud therapy, or if you're a person who suspects your nervous system might enjoy an hour where your phone is physically impossible to touch, I'd love to hear from you.

And to SEMAC and everyone who believes the arts belong to all of us: thank you. You didn't just fund pottery classes. You funded presence, possibility, and a whole lot of joyfully imperfect bowls.

Here's to slowing down, getting messy, and making something whole out of raw material. (Turns out that works for clay and for people.)

With muddy hands and a full heart,

Terri

This activity has been made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund