Watch OOMA Ceramics Director Charlie Mabry go through the process of creating a pinch pot jar. Charlie mainly uses pinching but can also be seen using score and slip methods to attach smaller pieces made for the vessel.

Helene Fielder was born in Rive de Gier, France, and became a naturalized American citizen at age 10. Stateside, she has lived in Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Virginia. She also lived abroad in France, Slovenia, and Germany before establishing her studio in Booneville, Mississippi.

Helene has maintained a full-time studio for the past 17 years, creating in both clay and metal. She has taught both pottery and silversmithing internationally, including jewelry and pottery instruction for three years in Giessen, Germany. She had extensive work experience in marketing, illustration, and advertising prior to her studio work period.

Helene has an eclectic range of interests which include sci-fi, fishing, gardening, rockhounding, puzzles, lapidary, reading, and of course, pottery.

“My first aspiration to be an artist started early in fifth grade. I admired the majestic horses that a quiet girl in my class was constantly drawing in her sketchbook. She gave me my first drawing lessons because of my desire to carry my own sketchbook. Nearly five decades later, sketching ideas of future clay sculptures is still my favorite and hardest part of the process, because it is the most creative and challenging. In the drawing stage, I plan my textures, glaze colors, form, balance, and movement.

When I do work that is going well, I try to stay in the moment, not worry about the future, and to be content. I love all colors and enjoy observing forms in our existence: a seed bursting from the earth, a fish alive with its glitter of color, a microscopic pattern. My wish is that my work transfers these precious miraculous moments of life.

My favorite tool is a fiddling knife that I have worn thin after 35 years of use. To me, it works better than all my other tools and when I misplace it, I have got to look for it until it is found. That knife needs me to sculpt these sketches.“

-Helene Fielder