Inspirational Pottery: The Art of Worley Faver

This is quite in keeping with what research is beginning to reveal about dreams. DeAngelis states, “Dreams themselves—with their idiosyncratic imagery, colorful extrapolations on the same theme and nonjudgmental stance—model at least one aspect of the creative process, the free association that precedes actual creation."

But dreams alone are not enough. It takes some unique qualities to create Faver’s pots, qualities such as passion, perseverance and patience, and understanding of the old ways. He says that to his knowledge, not

many potters on the east coast make large pots anymore, and almost no one hand builds and polishes them. Most are done on a wheel and glazed, and that’s not what Faver enjoys.

He forms each pot slowly and carefully by hand, working the clay into coils and building up the shape of the vessel. When it’s completely dry, he polishes the pottery with a smooth stone, just like the Anasazi Indian potters (A.D. 200 to A.D. 1300) did in order to help their vessels hold water. (“Anasazi” a word from the Navajo language, means “Ancient Ones.” Although the Anasazi disappeared without a trace in the 14th century, they are considered to be the ancestors of the 19 Pueblo Indian tribes inhabiting the southwest today.)

Faver is attracted to pottery produced 5,000 years ago when they had no kilns and fancy glazes. He spends as much time as he can in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where he sketches the designs on antiquities. But he won’t use symbols from Native American pottery; he considers them almost sacred, and won’t copy them.

He speaks admiringly of the Pueblo potters who inspire him, most especially Maria Martinez, 1887-1980, from San Ildefonso Pueblo. Martinez is famous for her black on black pottery. The art of pottery making was facing extinction in the pueblos, and Maria, with her husband Julian Martinez (who painted symbols on the pots after Maria built them), collaborated to bring it back to life. Demonstrating their techniques at several World’s Fairs, they received the Best of Show award at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933, and were invited to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Worley Faver visits the San Ildefonso Pueblo, located about 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe, N.M., every October, to gain inspiration. He tells of searching for Maria’s grave there, in the little graveyard by the church. Pueblo guides explained to him that there was no marker, because Maria wanted to return to the earth—earth that yielded the clay

she had used so productively to give her talent to the world and bring back the ancient potters’ ways.

Another one of Faver’s muses is contemporary potter Tammy Garcia, of the Santa Clara Pueblo, who carries on the 2,000-year-old tradition of southwestern pottery, “infusing it with a new energy,” and creating pottery “that crackles with a spirited vivacity original to the art form,” according to the Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe. Garcia is known for her amazing large pots that “adapt cultural motifs into stylized structural carvings that explode across the surface of her works.” www.blueraingallery.com/tammy_garcia.

So, inspired by the ancient and its contemporary revelations, Faver creates his pots, works that stem from his passion for the art.

“Outside of my family, it’s the most precious thing in my life.” Using his experience, dreams and mediations to give him the design, he wants the pot to speak to the person who looks at it.

Faver’s experience is varied. He hasn’t always been a potter. A native of Palm Valley, he now lives with his wife Dena just two miles from where he was born and raised. Both of his grandfathers served on the St. Johns Board of County Commissioners, and one served in the state Legislature. He left the area for a while, drilling for oil in the South Atlantic, Brazil, and the Gulf of Mexico. Retiring from that, he came home and took some drawing courses at Florida Community College at Jacksonville and at Jacksonville University.

He started potting when a friend advised him, “You need to do something in three dimensions.” That was about 17 years ago.

Faver didn’t retire from his other professional activities until recently. He was quality control director for Armor Holdings, headquartered in Jacksonville, a company that makes a number of products for law enforcement and the military, including body armor used by our troops in Iraq. He still puts in a couple of days at week at the company,

implicitly aware of and totally dedicated to the importance of its contributions to troop safety.

But Faver is also totally dedicated to his art. He still has the pot he calls his “alpha pot,” and measures his progress by it.

“As I’ve gotten older, I see my pots more true to my vision. Age has a lot to do with it.”He believes that true pottery reflects the internal workings of the potter, that “who and what they are will come out in the design and shape of the pots.”

His painstaking methods require time; he only produces about 12 pots each year. And sometimes he struggles with the process. If a pot doesn’t totally satisfy him, he “puts the clay back in the bag.” He’ll take an almost finished work and cut it up, saving the clay to use again another time. So when he completes a pot and allows it to survive, you can be sure it’s met his vision and his standards, which are high indeed.

Faver is an original himself, a man who creates pots because he has to be true to his call to create. He would build pots just for the meditative part of it, saying “it helps me be centered.” His work reflects this commitment, and the tremendous respect he has for the art itself, and for its special origins in our Native American culture.

There is something almost mystical about taking clay and molding it into art of such gratifying form. Faver’s work reflects the mystery and goodness of the earth in a tangible way.

You can see examples of his art on display now at the Jacksonville International Airport and during the third annual Artists Studio Tour sponsored by the Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach, Saturday, Oct. 8.