What a degree in ceramics can do

Almost flunking out of East Carolina University was one of the best things Charlotte potter Julie Wiggins could have done.

"My parents said, 'You have one more shot and then you're on your own.' " she recalled. "I had no idea what I wanted to do. I'd been directed to study things like science and other academic things, and nothing really excited me."

Wiggins decided to take time off, work and figure out her life.

"I got a job at a coffee shop and my friend working there, Jen Mecca, told me she was getting a degree in ceramics. 'You can do that?' I said. I had no idea. She took me to the studio, gave me a little experience on the wheel, and I was hooked. I'm a creative person and just hadn't been exposed to that way of expressing myself."

Fourteen years later, Wiggins, Mecca and two other Charlotte-area potters get together twice a year to host a show and sale, and Wiggins sells her Asian-style functional porcelain in galleries in Raleigh, Charlotte and beyond. She returns to the Triangle next month for a one-day show in Durham at Julie Olson's White Oak Pottery studio.

Wiggins' path to pottery started with a two-week course at Penland School of Crafts, which, at age 19, she arranged and paid for herself.

"I called my parents while I was there and said I wanted to go back to college. My first semester back, I made a 4.0, and my dad had a total change of heart about what I needed to study. He now uses me as an example of how people should follow their passions," she said of Paul Wiggins, a retired high school principal in Jacksonville, where Wiggins, 33, grew up.

Experiencing history

A longer stay at Penland, along with an ECU-sponsored art history course in Morocco and Spain for six weeks, further opened her eyes.

"Experiencing their history and tradition, seeing all those mosaics and tiles, really pushed me to see things differently," she said. "It took years to digest it all."

She and her now-husband Dave Pettine moved to Charlotte in 2002, when he entered graduate school at UNC. She took a job teaching elementary school and joined Clayworks Studio.

Wiggins started out making earthy salt-glazed pots, but gradually moved toward more refined porcelain ware.

"One of my ECU professors was Korean, and so Asian influences have always been a big part of my work," she said. "When [her husband] finished school, I went to China to study. I knew I hadn't given clay the focus and discipline it needed and that my heart desired."

Through West Virginia University, she spent four months in 2005 at Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in the city dubbed "the porcelain capital of China."

"We studied traditional Chinese techniques, and each week we had a different master," she said. "All the clay rules I'd been taught were broken when I got there. It was an awakening that there really are no rules.

"We learned about porcelain carving, blue and white porcelain, and yixing teapots, my very, very favorite thing to make. I'm intrigued by it because it's an intimate object, it signifies taking time to pause, and I love the communal aspect, sitting and having tea together."

An accidental setback

She returned home itching to put her mark on what she'd learned in China, only to have a major setback - an auto accident that seriously injured her wrist.

"I couldn't use my right hand, but as that door closed, windows opened," Wiggins said. "I started to train my left hand and learned to hand build instead of using the wheel. It's less stress on the body."

With physical therapy, surgery and yoga, she has recovered and is making pots full time using both hand-building and wheel-throwing techniques. She teaches a class at Clayworks and runs a pottery program for Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools.

"Last year I knew I needed to make a leap, because my pottery was in demand and I wasn't able to fulfill the orders. [My husband] and I built a studio in May. ... It was a crazy amount of work, but I wanted it so badly."

Asian patterns, forms

Wiggins' work is a blend of contemporary and traditional Asian patterns and forms, with clean lines under celadon glazes. She often turns clay on a traditional human-powered treadle wheel instead of an electric wheel, adding the rhythm of her body to the creation of the pots.

Most of Wiggins pieces have delicate inlaid drawings or patterns that she carves with an X-acto blade.

"I've always been a big doodler, and I thrive on patterns and repetition. I'm always sketching, and I'll pull from those and start putting them on pots, maybe combining geometric patterns with flowers and birds. I never intended the drawings to be representative, but people seem to really connect to them. For them, the drawings start a story."

Wiggins has focused recently on building her inventory before a burst of spring shows. Among her biggest sellers are dinner and lunch plates, which she often sells in sets of eight or more. Her table settings are dishwasher safe, though hand-washing keeps them stronger.

After starts and stops from moving, travel and injury, Wiggins says things are finally coming together.

"Last year was a fun, transitional year, when I felt like I was finally bringing everything home."