When Doug McDowell enrolled in a ceramics class at the College of Lake County 17 years ago, he had one goal — to make a cup.
“I did make a cup, but it was the only one I made,” said the 72-year-old Beach Park resident.
Instead, he went on to create and sell piano plates, pots and porcelain planters, one of which recently earned him best of show for the juried College of Lake County 39th Annual Student Competition held in spring.
“I was shocked,” said McDowell. “It’s very rare that pottery takes the best of show.” Through the many years he’s entered the competition, he recalls winning a $25 prize once.
McDowell, who has taken ceramics classes at the college nearly every semester since the first one, doesn’t consider himself an artist. And yet, he had a one-man show in Wisconsin a few years ago and just learned his pottery has been accepted into the International Ceramic Artists Network online show (https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/ican/juried-show).
“I’m excited,” said McDowell. “This is really big.”
“But from my standpoint. I’m not really an artist per se, because I really can’t draw,” he said. “Because I can use geometry and do pottery, then it becomes a certain kind of art. It’s tough. There are a lot of starts and stops. But you find out what you’re good at and what you’re interested in and what works for your niche.”
McDowell said he worked for a large medical company before retiring in 2007. His interest in ceramics classes stems from growing up in Appalachia and learning about the craft from his grandmother. “She was an antique dealer and a pottery collector,” McDowell said.
“She collected Rookwood, Weller, Roseville — the art pottery from the 1900s. A lot of it has detailed painting on, lots of nature scenes, animals. A lot of it is very expensive, especially the Rookwood — you can get to $1,000 to $5,000 a pop.”
“It’s part of Americana,” he said. “It’s not being made anymore.”
McDowell said learning to throw on a pottery wheel was difficult. “The most challenging thing is to get the design you want on a particular shape of pot. Sometimes the pot can change just by making a little alteration of a quarter of an inch on a certain part of it while you’re throwing.”
“After a while, as I progressed. I realized, I’m getting a little bit good at this,” said McDowell, who has taken the beginning through advanced classes and as a student can work in the CLC pottery studio whenever it’s open. His wife, Carol, takes classes with him — and creates trays and bowls, he said.
His award-winning planter stands about a foot tall and is 8 inches at its widest. He created a series of brown diamonds and cream-colored criss-cross lines with smaller yellow diamonds. He added a row of yellow sunflowers at the top of the planter, below a beveled lip, and at the bottom of the planter, above the base.
“I’m a geometric person,” McDowell said. “Everything I do has a geometric background or has a geometric design to it. During high school, geometry was my favorite class.” His wife found a picture of him when he was about 5 years old. The shirt he was wearing featured a geometric design.
One of the most challenging pieces he made was a ceramic piano keys plate for an organist at his church, he said. “It was a big hit. (The organist) just loves it. I’ve made 14 others and sold all but one.”
Each plate is about 12 inches in diameter and has a 3-to-4-inch center from which 88 piano keys radiate.
“I threw the plate on a pottery wheel out of porcelain and then I turned around and did all the math, which artistic people don’t really like to deal with. I came up with all the ratios. I made it work,” he said.
“I’ve taken that rectangle (shape of a piano keyboard) and turned it around so it comes back and meets itself.”
McDowell said he was inspired to make planters when a fellow classmate showed him a few he had made for his wife.
He created 12 last fall semester and sold three on the spot during a class critique session. In spring, he created more finishing in February in time to enter two of them in the student competition, a juried exhibit featuring painting, drawing, computer graphics, photography, ceramics, jewelry, digital media and sculpture.
Due to COVID-19, the student artwork is displayed in a virtual gallery instead of live at the Robert T. Wright Community Gallery of Art on campus. To see the gallery, go to www.clcillinois.edu/campus-life/arts/wright-gallery/student-art-competition.
McDowell and his wife love to travel. They go antique hunting and hiking. Last year, they hiked 560 miles across Spain, he said. He also completed the Appalachian trail in 2018.
With some COVID-19 restrictions limited, they are traveling in the Midwest this summer. But come August, he’ll be back in the studio making more art.
For more information, email McDowell at plasman1262@yahoo.com.
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
