(mellow music) - [Blayze] Basically the Creation Shop is a pottery and sculpture workshop that's inspired by my little cartoon character, Tom.

As I started growing up, I wanted to become an artist and to be a professional, I thought I had to let go of the little cartoon character.

(happy playful music) To be a professional, I needed to work on craftsmanship and there is no place in that professional world for cartoons.

But this character kept kind of sneaking back into my life.

After basically wanting to bring this character to life I ended up meeting that individual who worked for Pixar, Dan McCoy.

It was just in a brief moment that he shared the insight that these cartoons can connect with our emotions.

And from there I, you know, wanted to bring this little cartoon to life.

(upbeat music) (trickling water from a sponge) - So I went to MSUM for a year, and then from there I heard about a visiting artist, Boomer Moore, who was originally from Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

He came back to give a presentation at M State.

And from there he talked about how his school takes trips over to Jingdezhen, China.

They have a study abroad partnership program.

And basically kids from all over the world can join their program and learn from the best potters in the world.

I ended up signing up and joining West Virginia for three months in Jingdezhen, in the porcelain capital.

(jazz acoustic music) - [Blayze] We took a slow train into Jingdezhen, the porcelain capital.

- [Blayze] Still about over a million people live in this city.

And here we went to an area known as the sculpture factory and stayed for two and a half months.

There within the sculpture factory we were taken, basically, we stayed in an artist's residency location and different master craftsmen would come in and show us their, their specialty.

So there in the city, everybody specializes in one skill.

So you've got the master wheel thrower who will come in and either he specializes in making ginormous pots or he can just reproduce the same form over and over.

From there, this craftsman will hand the work over to another, another craftsman who will trim up the work and then someone else will paint the work.

And then there's the master of the kiln.

So there, this city is known for having some pottery that has been touched by over 30 master craftsmen.

So it's a very cool city.

And we had the opportunity to have many demonstrations of these different skills.

(piano music) Coming home from China literally a month before Covid, we ended, I ended up landing here back in my hometown and wanting to open up another ceramic studio.

(Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata plays) For about four months throughout Covid we renovated this space here, and, basically, it was gonna be my little private workshop, and I'd start to open it up to the community for like date nights and maybe a Sunday kids class here and there.

As I was starting to open it I had someone contact me at a, about a bachelorette party.

And I was like, whoa, okay, we'll do it.

(laughs) Like, we'll try that.

And then from there we started like promoting team building activities.

So trying to get, we ended up getting Zero Variance like a marketing company in here to experience clay.

It's been amazing.

Like, like in, in, over in just over a year we've had over a hundred workshops, I think close to 150 now.

And that's been everything from birthday parties to Sunday kids classes to date nights to team building.

But I have been able to experience and meet so many people who have never touched clay before.

And it's, it's a really cool experience.

Like it helps, it seems like it's, it helps people get in touch with, with like their mind and their hands and helping kind of allow them to, to work on.

Yeah.

Forming and, and articulating their, their mind on on like a, a clay piece.

(upbeat music) - [Blayze] The journey pottery has taken me on has been, it's really expanded my view of the world.

I would say that really dedicating myself to to kind of almost one focus has allowed me to see how far you can take that that material and that medium.

And it has branched out into sculpting, you know, from pursuing pottery.

I've got into concrete, but it's a lot of the same material.

Just learning how to, you know, not necessarily fire it but to form it in, in a larger three-dimensional way.

But, you know, it's, it was my reason for going to China.

(piano music) As an artist.

What I am trying to do, what I feel like I'm doing is is trying to really capture all that I can within my life and knowing that that's impossible.

Like, like there's so many ideas and so many things I want to create but how can someone stay motivated to continue and to continue to produce and and expand on what they know.

Even when the world is, is so busy and there's so many life activities that are going on that that seem so important.

You know, how can you continue to, to do more and and to refine that skill more?

And that's kind of where the, my philosophy has taken me further.

(opera instrumental music)