Inside the loving art of The Bonnie Potter
Bonnie Scoggins, known artistically as The Bonnie Potter, has dozens of in-progress clay plates, mugs, and bowls drying on a shelf at her in-home studio in Red Bank. On another shelf are piles of doilies, ready to be imprinted into clay.
Known in the Chattanooga area for her handmade pottery, Scoggins estimates she makes thousands of pieces a year, ranging from tiny ring-holders to large plates. Her love of clay, and her signature imprinted textures, started with mixed-media art classes when she was a child living in Boise, Idaho.
“When we did pottery, I was like ‘Oh! This is what I want to do.’ I was nine,” Scoggins says. When she was 18, the art class was given a big box of found items for them to make impressions in clay. The textured vase she made that day is on display in her home now.
Most of Scoggins’ work features imprints of doilies that were handmade by her great grandmother. At first she was afraid to use them, thinking she would ruin the fabric.
“There was a doily that had stains and holes, and my mom told me to try it; I couldn’t hurt it any worse. It worked perfectly,” Scoggins remembers.
She started to put the doily imprints into the rotation with the other pottery designs she was working on, including leaf imprints and carving.
“People just really gravitated to it,” she says. “So I just started doing more and more.”
Scoggins flattens out her clay first with her hands, and then with a rolling pin. She places the doily onto the clay, and uses the rolling pin again to get the shape embedded into the clay. Most of her work is shaped by hand, but she does use a wheel for mugs. After firing the pieces in a kiln, she uses glazed paints to add color to the pieces.
Scoggins’ favorite piece to make is with the original stained and holey doily. It’s a bowl with wavy edges.
“I spend eight to ten hours glazing it, and it always comes out looking great,” she explains.
Some of her newest pieces are mugs and plates that feature the Walnut Street Bridge. She uses a curved silver stamp for the bridge items. She carved her design out of wax and had cast it into silver.
“I spent several days building and carving that wax bridge so it would look like it was made out of string,” Scoggins notes. “I started doing the bridge stuff because people like items that have that Chattanooga feel.”
Scoggins will create custom pieces from other people’s doilies and table cloths. She recently made a plate for a woman who was turning 100 years old.
“My doilies are special to me because they’re my grandma’s,” she explains. “But if I can make it more special to that person using their grandma’s doilies, it makes an authentic emotional connection, which transcends it from a craft to art.”
She also gets doilies mailed to her, for her to keep. Last year a potter from the Netherlands sent her some, because she knew they would be used and appreciated by Scoggins.
She also enjoys working with kids, showing the kids how to play and create with clay. Last week, she went to an elementary school in Dalton, Georgia to work with second graders.
Scoggins says her goal for the future is to get back into carving. “I’ve only done like five carved pieces this year and I’d like to do one a month to flex that creative spirit more,” Scoggins says.
And, as any artist wishes to do, she hopes to keep honing and perfecting her technique. Scoggins’ work, which is priced based by size and number of color glazes, can be found at the weekly Chattanooga Market, which runs through the end of November. Her work is also at Winder Binder and Good World Goods. A plan is in the works to sell her pieces at a new jewelry store in Dalton.
She can also be contacted through her through her Facebook and Instagram pages, The Bonnie Potter, and her website, thebonniepotter.com