Welcome to the seventh episode of Sustaining Craft the Podcast, a series that features those in a creative, craft-based field. Listen below or keep scrolling to read the article about Adrian Quintanar and his pottery!

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In a career that has spanned music, photography, and ceramics, Adrian Quintanar has always focused on creating beauty. “I think that is what draws people to something tangible, and I really just want to contribute beauty to the world,” he shared. “I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but I think that’s my goal in life.”

Growing up in Fort Worth, Texas, Quintanar knew he’d pursue art. His childhood interest in music, playing woodwind instruments, led him to a college music scholarship. He then stumbled into a career in the dental lab industry–crafting porcelain teeth. “I actually did ceramics for about 12 years before I went to art school,” Quintanar explained. “At the time I knew nothing of pottery or anything else, and that job just kind of fell in my lap. My job title was ceramicist.”

When he was 26, he and his wife, Sarah, moved to Louisiana, where Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Louisiana State University. Sarah became an assistant professor at The University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Quintanar decided to go back to school for his BFA.

He focused on functional pottery. “I knew that there was a chance I was gonna really have a knack for it because I’d worked with my hands for so long and with porcelain,” he explained. “So I understood the material, I felt, really well. Once I took that pottery class, it clicked right away, and I finished that photo degree, but I continued making pots after.”

The couple had moved to Little Rock with a baby, and had two more children while Quintanar finished his degree. “It worked out,” Quintanar said. “We had a plan and stuck to it. That was really hard at times. My wife works full time, I was in school full time, and of course, having a baby is very difficult. I look back on it and I’m not sure how we managed. There’s a lot of juggling.”

There were also some fears. “It was scary, making this decision to try to fulfill this dream of becoming a full-time artist, because I didn’t know if I would be good enough,” Quintanar shared. “There’s a lot of self-doubt, especially when you go back to school a little later in life and you have a family.”

But he had some encouragement along the way, earning several scholarships, such as the Windgate Foundation Scholarship in 2014, and the Lewis and Debbie May Endowed Scholarship in 2015. “That’s what really kept me going through those years in school,” Quintanar said. “Because I did well, and it was noticed. That really did push me. It let me know I was on the right path.”

He became the artist in residence at the Arkansas Arts Center at the beginning of 2018, after an application process that included submitting a portfolio and a letter of intent. The program also required an established website, an arts degree, and an in-person interview.

Now, he’s a full-time ceramic artist, as the resident artist at the arts center, crafting functional pottery such as vases and cups. Quintanar works 35 hours a week, teaching classes, completing studio work and working on his own personal projects. He is able to learn how the arts center functions, and he spends a fair amount of time problem-solving. “I just don’t have as much time to make, but it’s okay because I’m getting paid now,” Quintanar shared. “That pressure is off now.”

Crafting a single piece of pottery can take up to three weeks. There’s the design stage, then the piece is created on the pottery wheel and must dry completely before it goes into the kiln. “If that moisture, as it leaves the clay, if it is rushed, it will crack in the kiln,” Quintanar explained. “It has to be bone dry, that’s what we call it when all the moisture is out of the pot. That takes days.”

 

The firing takes a few days, and then the pot is glazed and fired again. The kilns at the arts center are massive and can fit a couple of thousand pieces. With about 200 students and teachers creating throughout the week, it still takes time to fill the kilns.

Now, Quintanar is working on his end-of-residency show and experimenting with colored clay and colorful slips. “I want the show to be really bright and colorful,” Quintanar shared. “I’ve been making my own clay and mixing up my own slips, which are colorful slips that are applied on the surface.”

Slips consist of clay with water added and can be painted on a piece of pottery. Quintanar has been focused on experimenting for four months and has found some trial and error in the process. “I’ve had a lot of failures recently, after the firings, losing the colors,” he explained. “I could show you tons of tests of little white cups that are supposed to be purple and pink and blue. … I really finally think I’ve come upon a direction that might work. I haven’t so much thought about the forms yet. Like I said, I want it to be functional. So, of course, there will be bottles, jars and cups and possibly bowls. But there’s so many design elements to choose from, so I need to do a lot of brainstorming and drawing and sketching for those things, but I think it’s going to be really exciting. It’s going to be really colorful if it all goes well.”

While color can be added to his pieces using a glaze, he wants the color in the clay itself. “I think there’s some real beauty with having the actual clay body being colorful,” Quintanar shared. “It creates an aesthetic that’s really unique.”

Quintanar’s advice to others seeking a creative career is simple: “Don’t stop,” he shared. “It can be kind of scary and that’s a normal feeling for this line of work. Just don’t stop making.”

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Find Quintanar’s work at his website, on Facebook, or on Instagram. Also learn more about the Artist in Residence program at the Arkansas Arts Center.