BY MARSHA L. MELNICHAK Northwest Arkansas Times
Three quotations circle the life of ceramic artist Beverly Norton Walker — one from a Japanese artist, one from an American philosopher and one from a fortune cookie.
A quotation of Shoji Hamada, a potter who was declared a national treasure by the government of Japan, is pinned to a cork board in Norton Walker’s Fayetteville studio where she can see it daily.
“Making pots should not be a struggle. It should be just like walking downhill in a gentle breeze,” Hamada is quoted as saying.
Norton Walker agrees to a point.
“It’s walking downhill in a gentle breeze, but you’ve got to get to the top of the hill first,” she said. “That’s the part I think should be added to that.”
Norton Walker, who creates award-winning clay art in the backyard studio of her home, has been climbing that hill for about 30 years.
From Michigan to Texas, back to Michigan, to Oklahoma and now Arkansas, she followed the trail of art wherever it would lead her, however she was able. She has reached the point on the trail where her art is her livelihood.
As a girl in Michigan, she wanted to be a marine biologist.
“I would sit and do detailed drawings of seaweed,” she said.
Through the course of her life, her goal changed, but her interest in the creative process did not.
“I think it’s the freedom. I was always kind of a rebel,” she said. “I like the freedom to be kind of crazy, if you want to, and do your own thing. The independence really appeals to me.”
Her art trail included an attic studio, several garages and a barn basement in the Michigan cold on the fruit farm of which she was a part owner. In Texas, it was her living room.
“When my daughter would go to take a nap, I’d set up my canvases and start working on them. I had to put away everything and get it out,” she said. “Now I’ve finally got my own studio, and I’m just in heaven.”
The independence of being an artist also leads to being inventive.
She couldn’t afford canvases for her “bigger, bigger, bigger” paintings, she said, so she learned how to stretch and prime them. Then she started going to junkyards to find doorways and other old pieces that she could use as extra-large canvases.
She said she liked painting, but she wanted to do something a little more challenging.
“Then I got into clay. It literally grabbed me,” she said.
Norton Walker said she is not degreed to the hilt.
“We had this great art center in Kalamazoo (Mich.), and I just went down there and started exploring some of the classes,” she said.
It was there she learned “the nuts and bolts” of working clay, she said.
She did the same in Houston, advancing her art, her technique and her knowledge by taking classes that were open to anyone willing to try.
“I’ve had more of my training at art institutes and on my own, learning through workshops and reading and trying things,” Norton Walker said. “In 30 years you can accumulate a lot, but I’m always wanting to learn more.”
The trail to her art success today took a left turn in Oklahoma.
“When I moved to Oklahoma, I went totally leftbrained and got a job as a financial aid specialist,” she said.
For 16 years, she made time for art as much as she could around her work schedule.
“I did like helping people,” she said. “We worked with a lot of displaced homemakers, getting them started on the right plan with kids to support. Nine out of 10 of them weren’t getting financial aid from their husbands. They were starting over with no skills. My heart went out to them.”
Seven of those years she commuted from Fayetteville.
“I retired from there about five years ago and went into total clay, so this is my livelihood right now,” she said. “I haven’t regretted it at all. I’m not retired; I just retired from the left-brained world.”
While in Tulsa, Okla., her art trail took her again to the junkyards, this time during her lunch hours. The skylight, doors and windows of the studio where she turns gray clay slabs into colorful art today came from those noontime quests.
Her fortune cookie advice reminds her of how she reached that point where her art became her life.
“You will be successful through innovation and determination” stares her in the face from her mirror each morning.
“I think that has really kept me going,” Norton Walker said. “Taking chances, that’s the innovation part. And determination that you’re going to do this, that’s the thing.”
Those qualities added to her quest for independence, and a love of learning took what might have been the shadow of a dream and made it real.
For art to work as a living, “you have to be driven,” she said.
Wearing a lot of hats helps, too.
To make a living as a potter, she has to do much more than work the clay she loves. She is a photographer, marketer, chemist, engineer, architect, inventor, problem solver, supplier, hostess for her Christmas show and a time-management consultant.
Her studio shelves hold materials as varied as alumina hydrate, titanium dioxide and ginkgo leaves. A slab roller and a machine that recycles the clay are part of her studio equipment. Hand tools range from an arm-length rubber mallet to brushes and a favorite worn wooden stick about the length of a pencil.
This will be the first year that Norton Walker won’t make her own clay.
For 27 years, she stirred and mixed and beat clays, feldspar, flint and grog into malleable clay. She has decided, as a business person, that there might be better use for her time than hefting 50- and 100-pound bags of clay and components.
She will, however, still be creating her glazes and slips for decoration to maintain control of their properties. Norton Walker is known for her glazes and their unique interaction with the clay work.
“I don’t have any secret ingredients,” she said. “It’s how I use them.”
Process
Norton Walker works in stages. This month, she is building pieces. Several potential wall platters are drying on studio tables. Others, that have been fired, also wait for that time when she has enough built that she can begin decorating them.
When she’s done, each piece will be unique. Many will have been inspired by nature; most will be functional.
Some will have spoken to her.
“It does. It talks to you, but it’s kind of a strange language,” she said. “It’s not something I can verbalize.”
The clay talking to her can be as simple as an accident. Maybe the clay is softer than usual or gets a ding in it during the building or drying.
“Then I work with it,” she said. “I think, ‘Let’s try this on it.’ Then it either likes it or it doesn’t.”
And that is part of the art, the uniqueness of the piece, that the clay’s own characteristics guide what it becomes.
“A lot of times, especially if I’m in the forming process, I have to get something in my mind, but when I start working with it, the clay wants to do its own thing,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just accidental, but actually, that’s what I love to happen.”
Last week, when she flipped a platter to dry, it got hung up.
“I looked at it, and I thought, ‘This might be a new direction for me,’” she said. “I let it be, and it’s going to lead me to where I put the handles.”
Her “clay buddy,” Cheryl Buell of Winslow, said it is that aesthetic, that feel for the clay and for finding the best in it, that makes Norton Walker and her work special.
“She surrounds herself in beauty,” Buell said. “She sees the beauty not only in objects but also in people. She has the ability to look at people and see the best in them.
“She has the ability to see the potential or the shiny spots on a person instead of the rough spots.”
Platters and bowls
“Nature evokes the creativity in her, I think,” said Pete Heinzelmann of Fayetteville, who has Norton Walker art in his home.
Bamboo, willow and ginkgo leaves are among her inspirations.
Norton Walker said her work is influenced by Japanese art, but she doesn’t imitate it.
“What she does is exciting,” Heinzelmann said. “Fayetteville considers itself a cultural community, and she’s a big contributor to that cultural community in my opinion.”
Most, maybe 95 percent, of Norton Walker’s work is hand-built stoneware. On this section of her art trail, many are wall platters. Clay stamps, folds of clay and attached handles add to its distinct uniqueness, along with her special touches with the glazes.
Sizes vary from piece to piece, but generally, like her earlier paintings, they are large.
Norton Walker urges people to take the platters off the wall and use them as serving pieces. Even on her Web site — www.nortonwalkerstudio.com” href=”http://www.nortonwalkerstudio.com/”>www.nortonwalkerstudio.com — she tells viewers that the pieces have a rim on the back so they can be used on the table.
“I want people to see ceramic art in a new light,” she said. “I think they’ve been so tuned in to just functional work.”
She would like to get peo ple to support the local art community and tries to do her part toward that end.
Besides buying supplies locally, when she is asked about classes, she directs people to other local artists: Susan Hutchcroft, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Community Creative Center at the Nadine Baum Studio; and Kelley and Mike Wilks at Flat Rock Studio.
“That’s the places you need to be going to take classes in clay,” she said, recalling her own art center initiation into the world of clay, stoneware and ceramic art.
Norton Walker donated one of her centerpiece bowls for the most recent Empty Bowls silent auction.
One of her pieces, “Shoshun Futaba,” which translates to “early spring sprout,” will be included in the 2009 Arkansas Artists Calendar published by the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion Association.
In 2006, each recipient of the Governor’s Arts Awards received a Norton Walker work of art titled “Black Bamboo.”
Her “Bamboo Leaf Platter” was chosen from among thousands to be included in the “Strictly Functional” pottery exhibit. Her work has also been featured in other national juried events.
Norton Walker’s work was also included in the 2004-05 touring exhibit of Arkansas Women Artists.
She has gallery affiliations in Little Rock and in Douglas, Mich. Locally her work is displayed at the Bank of Fayetteville and has been featured by the University of Arkansas and the Walton Arts Center.
Norton Walker is not one to rest on her accolades and awards. She still works every day in her studio, building pieces for her next show, and she still is taking classes.
“I’m always, always looking to learn,” she said.
The third quotation that Norton Walker sees every day is attached to her refrigerator door.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined,” reads the Henry David Thoreau quotation.
“Some quotes really hit home, and that one certainly has,” Norton Walker said.
BROOKE McNEELY Northwest Arkansas Times Clay artist Beverly Norton Walker works on a new platter in her studio at her home in Fayetteville.
COURTESY “Shoshun Futaba,” which translates to “early spring sprout,” will be included in the 2009 Arkansas Artists Calendar published by the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion Association. Beverly Norton Walker of Fayetteville is the artist.
COURTESY This potter’s mark identifies the work of Fayetteville clay artist Beverly Norton Walker.
