Father and son all fired up by love of pottery

Date Published: 14-Feb-2013

After over 30 years teaching pottery classes, Laurence O’Kelly has taken a leaf out of the books of his tiniest students.

“Rather than doing stuff on the wheel, I’d rather create a monster,” he smiles. With a twinkle in the eye, he talks about one of his most favourite pieces in the workshop in Lower Merchants Road.

“I hope he didn’t throw it out. He throws everything out,” he nods at his son Kevin.

The figurine is a tiny horse, with one foot in front and one in the back. “I love that piece, a child made it and it’s just so full of character. It’s character that’s the important thing. I can’t compete. I can do something perfectly but it’s got no character,” he insists.

Kevin disagrees. “That’s not true. You do have the skills,” he retorts.

The easy friendship between father and son is palpable. Just as well, seeing as though they will be working side by side from now on in the pottery business.

After completing the two-year Ceramics Design & Skills course run by the Crafts Council of Ireland in Thomastown, Kilkenny, Kevin will divide his time between doing his own work and sharing pottery classes for kids and adults.

No different then to how things were since he was a boy.

“When he was very small he used to come back to us from school to do jobs for me and of course you’d have to pay him. So right from an early age he was slave labour,” grins Laurence.

Despite his well-honed skill and love of the craft, it took a long time for the 32-year-old to immerse himself fully in pottery.

After school in St Enda’s, he travelled for a few years, with stints in London, Australia, Germany and Holland before returning to Galway where he concentrated on his first love, music.

“I was in a band, Cuckoo Savante. I found I put a lot of work into drumming. One year I had a broken ankle so I couldn’t play for a few months. I made a head and when I was making it I realised I was naturally better at it than I was at drumming,” Kevin recalled.

“I’m a good drummer but that’s from effort and learning whereas with the pottery it was more natural. It was hard to go, OK, right, instead I should be doing the pottery.”

Laurence was an art teacher in a secondary school when he first spotted a potter’s wheel. He decided to take up pottery full-time and for a long spell much of his time was taken up with travelling around to schools teaching them the art.

With the downturn, that work has dried up and classes are mainly based at the workshop, which doubles as the family home. The workshop boasts six wheels and its own kiln which heats to at least 1,300 degrees.

Favourite pieces among adult students are pots, vases, bowls, candle-holders, egg cups, jewellery and heads. However, children have altogether more exciting ideas.

“Aliens, monsters, castles. The wonderful thing is if a small child comes in you really just give them the clay – of course you suggest things – but they just do what they want. I’ve given babies clay and once they get over the stage of trying to eat it, you’d be surprised at how a child will look at it,” enthuses Laurence.

“I remember a child wanted to make Croke Park once with this small amount of clay. I thought, no, that won’t work. But the child did it. It kind of taught me a lesson. There’s nothing a child can’t make. Clay has got such a range. It’s perfect for different age groups, different styles.”

Anyone who has ever taken up pottery attests to its therapeutic powers.

Laurence remembers one family who had endured a particularly tragic death. The mother wanted the kids to try and return to normal life so she enrolled them in classes. They were very subdued for the first few classes. One week one of the children made a tombstone with the relative’s name on it. The children never returned. It was like as if they had accepted the death and no longer needed the therapy.

Back in 2010 he invited 32 members of the public to take a piece of clay and, armed with an instruction sheet and a few hours of tuition, go off and make their own figurine which would form part of a chess set inspired by Galway.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.