By Angie Sykeny
asykeny@hippopress.com
Anyone who enjoys working with clay will find daily inspiration in The Voice of Clay: 365 Quotes About Clay, the latest book from Wendy Walter, owner of The Voice of Clay, a pottery studio, shop, clay-based spa and holistic therapy center based at her home in Brookline.
All 365 quotes in The Voice of Clay include the word “clay,” used in either a literal or a metaphorical sense. The book explores how clay is used in a diverse array of disciplines, including art, cooking, gardening, science and holistic health, and includes photographs of clay in various forms.
“Clay is so much more than what potters use to make pots,” Walter said. “It’s incredible how versatile and powerful this material is.”
The quotes are grouped in five chapters — “Earth,” “Air,” “Fire,” “Water” and “Ether” — named after the five primary elements of nature, all of which are essential to working with clay, Walter said.
“A piece of clay comes from the earth and is hydrated with water,” she said. “We make it dry from the air, then fire it in a kiln, and the ether [represents] the creative quality of the potter.”
Walter said “Water” quotes either reference water or are “more emotional and soul-connected;” “Earth” quotes reference the earth and are “sort of informative;” “Air” quotes are “science-based” and related to “thinking, processing and analyzing;” “Fire” quotes reference the kiln and firing process of pottery or other kinds of “transformation, magic, energy, spirit and the nature of change;” and “Ether” quotes express the qualities of space, which holds all of the other elements, and “creative potential and pure intelligence.”
“My favorite chapter is the ‘Ether’ chapter,” she said. “I love the [quotes] that talk about us as cosmic human beings and point towards our universal essence.”
For years Walter kept a binder full of her favorite quotes from her own collection of books about clay. The idea of publishing a compilation of the quotes had been “brewing for a long time,” she said.
When she finally decided to go through with the book, she started buying more books about clay, looking for books about clay at local libraries and researching clay online to find more quotes.
“I’ve always been interested in reading about the many different perspectives that people have on using clay,” she said.
Each chapter has a brief introduction in which Walter explains what the quotes in that chapter mean to her on a personal level and how readers can find meaning in the quotes and apply them to their own lives.
“The quotes don’t just provide information about clay,” Walter said. “There is a self-help element to them as well. They are meant to help people take a look at themselves and their own personal growth.”
Walter started making pottery in high school.
“I immediately got addicted to working with clay, and by the time I graduated I knew I would be a potter,” she said.
She went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in music and English, with a concentration in poetry. After getting married, having two children, and getting a divorce, she decided it was “time to commit to being a potter,” she said. She started making pottery at home and selling her work.
Later, she became interested in uses for clay outside of pottery. She enrolled in an esthetics program and studied the detoxifying, beautifying and healing properties of clay for the body. Additionally, she earned a master’s degree in transpersonal psychology — a subset of psychology that integrates altered states of consciousness, intuition, meditation, dreams, breathwork and hypnosis — and a certification in breathwork.
Through her business, The Voice of Clay, Walter creates and sells her own pottery and teaches a variety of pottery classes for kids and adults. She also offers holistic wellness coaching, classes and therapy sessions and provides a number of clay-based services and treatments in her licensed one-room spa, such as facials, skin masks and foot baths.
In 2018 Walter published her first book, Being Pickity, which tells the story of Pickity Place, the historic property in Mason where she grew up.
She has two more books in the works. One, which she hopes to publish by the end of the year, is a clay cookbook.
“There are a lot of different ways to cook with clay,” she said. “You can cook or bake in clay pots; you can wrap food in a layer of clay when you cook or bake it, which helps to keep [the food] moist and keep all of its flavor; and there’s even edible clay, which most people don’t realize is a thing.”
The other book, which will likely be released in 2022, is a children’s picture book about a gnome who discovers the magic of clay. The book will be illustrated with photographs of felted scenes created by a felt artist.
“It’s just an idea that came to me,” Walter said. “I’d like to teach the younger generation about all the possibilities of clay and different ways to think about clay through stories and myth.”
The Voice of Clay: 365 Quotes About Clay
Paperback available on Amazon. Order the book through Wendy Walter’s website to receive a signed copy. Visit voiceofclay.com/books-by-wendy-walter-1.
