I initially called Charlotte potter Julie Wiggins to talk about the Regional Artists Grant she had received from the Arts and Science Council to purchase a pug mill so she could recycle her leftover clay.  But conversations – including journalistic interviews – don’t always go as planned.

Wiggins, 33, wanted the mill so she didn’t have to manually slake her excess clay for re-use on her treadle wheel. It wasn’t because she was lazy. An auto accident in 2006 had badly damaged her wrist. It took her eight months to be able to use it again, and at one point, she thought she might have to give up pottery. So our conversation became one about overcoming adversity and the compelling drive to create art.

Before the accident, Wiggins had worked exclusively on the wheel, but now she also does hand building. During recovery, she had to draw with her untrained left hand, which opened a new world of creativity to her. Although she now uses her dominant right hand to draw on her pieces, “it was like a door closed, but a window was opened. My drawings are a reflection of memories, travels and loves of life.”

Wiggins also credits the practice of yoga for making it possible for her to pursue her love of pottery.  “I never thought I’d be able to put my hand flat again. Now I can do a handstand. Yoga lets me continue to work in clay – I’m no longer in pain all the time.”

The experience taught Wiggins about resilience: “I’m now prepared to for whatever life has to throw at me.  I want to be a cork that bobs on the ebb and flow of life and not get stuck.”

For Wiggins, pottery “is a creative itch in my side.” She was flunking out of East Carolina University and working in a coffee shop when a co-worker suggested she try pottery.

“I went to her studio and was hooked,” Wiggins says. “I took a semester off to get my act together, then came back and got a 4.0 in my new major, ceramics.”

Wiggins is still close with that former co-worker, Jen Mecca, who now lives in York.  They are both members of the pottery co-op, Thrown Together.  They get together regularly to “talk pots” and help each other with business and artistic issues.  Each April, they hold a home exhibit together.

Wiggins, who moved into a studio in her home last year, considers Lark & Key in the South End her home gallery.  She exhibits regularly in national shows, such as the current 100 Tea Pots in Baltimore. She continues to teach pottery to children and adults and managed the studio at Clay Works after she returned from studies in China.  

Wiggins’ resilient spirit and creative impulses are apparent in her porcelain pieces, which she describes as being for everyday use with “a function across culture and time” that combine Eastern and Western influences.

But Wiggins just doesn’t express these feelings through her art. During our conversation, she not only convinced me to try yoga to deal with my chronic back pain, she also said she will take me to my first class – and fuss at me until I go.

In my thinking about pug mills, I never saw it coming.