Potter and son

MANILA, Philippines - “Learning pottery is like learning to ride a bike... Everyone falls off the first time,” says potter Joey De Castro as the clay I am working on at the wheel caves in. “It’s art,” his son, Jaime says, looking at the misshapen form.

Jaime himself is already skilled at making his own pots and moves comfortably around the studio and at the wheel. De Castro explains that pottery is actually more difficult than one may expect. “It takes concentration, focus, and physical strength.”

De Castro started doing pottery in 2003 when he enrolled in the Pettyjohn Mendoza pottery school. He was interested primarily in making pots for his plants – he collects succulents and is a member of the Succulent Society. “You have to have nice pots to complement your plants,” he explains. “The pot has to do justice to the plant, like a photo and a frame.”

“I started with pots, then it became plates, cups, mugs. Now I make abstract weird pieces, slabs, industrial designs,” he says. “It went from a hobby to a passion, and now it’s a profession.”

Before getting into pottery, De Castro was a photographer. “When I was a photographer, all I did was travel the country – that was my journey. But when you take a picture, you just give it to the developer; then you bring it to a framer and he frames it for you,” he says.

“In pottery, from the clay to the forming to the firing, glazing – the whole process end to end – to the finished product, goes through your hands,” he says. “I used to compose in 2D. Now I compose in 3D. These are now my journeys of clay.”

De Castro started to seriously pursue pottery when he bought a kiln in 2007. He had realized by then that what had started as a hobby could become self-sustaining. “You realize there just might be a future. So, you close your eyes, you jump off the cliff, and see how far you can go before you hit bottom.”

Since then, De Castro has joined art fairs and mounted both group and solo exhibits. “The main reason is to spread pottery out in the art scene as a legitimate art form.”

For De Castro, pottery is both an intimate and intense process. “You embrace it, you swallow it, you eat it… there’s chemistry involved, alchemy, thermodynamics, geology.”

Reflecting on his craft, De Castro says industrialization has made ceramics into such cold objects – toilet bowls, sinks, run-of-the-mill mugs. “My pots are made of the same materials, but I do them by hand.”

He adds, “All anthropologists and archeologists study a civilization by the pottery they leave behind. This is who I am. This is my imprint on a lump of clay. If you’re holding my bowl, it’s like you’re holding my hand. It’s intimate and it’s permanent, while all of us are temporary.”

 â€œThere’s this eternal search for the perfect bowl,” says De Castro as he continues to hone his craft. With every bowl that he makes, he is able to make it thinner, rounder, more perfect – but at the same time, he finds more aspects of the bowl that he wants to improve on.

Aside from doing his own art, De Castro opens his studio to students two to three times a week. He is the only pottery teacher in Manila now, since the Pettyjohn school closed in 2009. “There’s a kiln in the city! In the heart of EDSA,” he says.

“I teach the ABCs, the basics,” says De Castro. “But the Ds to Zs, you’re on your own. Read books, mingle with other potters, travel, get input from all over. It’s a journey of self-discovery.”

“I’ve committed myself to pottery and I’ve committed myself to teaching pottery,” he says. As a teacher, De Castro is keen on cultivating the next generation of potters – as he weeds out the “bucketlisters,” as he calls those who are just there to try pottery once.

He adds, he does not advertise his school, but those who are serious enough and look hard enough, will be able to find it.

“It has to grab you by the bones. There’s a certain person, their eyes are in a daze and they are lost in the world of clay,” he says of his most promising students.

Among his students is De Castro’s son, Jaime. “Kids and clay just go together,” he says. De Castro admits that at this point, Jaime is not really thinking of taking up pottery seriously, but is just reacting to his environment. He started hanging out in his dad’s studio at the age of four.

“He is really into football – he is the team captain at his school and he said he wants to become a professional football player,” says the proud father. Nevertheless, Jaime has been successful selling his works at art fairs, where he usually sells out his pieces long before his father.

“I just to let him feel how it is to sell things, to meet people, to get paid – it’s a good education. That’s real life; you don’t learn that in school,” says De Castro. So far, Jaime has been able to buy a Wii and iPad with his own money.

 â€œI just encourage and expose him to art. It’s always an option. I also like doing collaborations with him while he’s young.”

De Castro adds, “My best time is when I’m on the wheel and he’s on the wheel and I’m doing my thing and he’s doing his own thing.” The father and son team will be at the Art in the Park art fair at Salcedo Park on March 23.

De Castro is also preparing for an exhibit at the Avellana Gallery on March 15 and an international group show at Art Informal on March 20.

“And that’s just the start of the year,” he says. “There are just too many forks in the road, too many possibilities to know what will happen next.”

Meanwhile, the search for the perfect bowl continues.