Table Manners: An Interview with Penny Huynen

We tend to take for granted the beauty present in everyday tasks and customs. The framed picture on a work desk, the way the snow transforms the campus we walk about, the pieces we eat and drink out of. There's nothing that makes a morning like sitting down for a hot cup of coffee with your favorite mug.

Such was the philosophy of Penny Huynen's winter course Table Manners: Functional Pottery. The course gave non-art majors a distinctive opportunity to make something creative and artistic that was also functional. Her students became familiar with stoneware and porcelain clay over the course of the class to ultimately be able to mold something beautiful and unique out of the slabs. 

In working with and learning to manipulate the different types of clay, Penny's students learned how to use make use of texture, colored slip, and carving on tiles. They worked with reliefs – a raised image made out of clay like a rose, and with stamps, which are used to impress an image upon the clay. All of these techniques were taught to them as part of a creative project where each student had to design twenty individual tiles. "It was mostly an exploratory exercise," said Huynen, "so that they could really see the possibilities of the surface."

Students moved on to making autobiographical pieces in the classroom. They were challenged with the task of representing themselves in clay, making an impression of something which has impressed them. One of Penny's students, junior, Jonathan Raymond, was a rock climber, and created a magnificent plate that not only resembled the brick-gold surface of a cliff side, but was embellished in rope cords and a carabineer. 

For their final project, students were asked to create four dining room pieces: a cup, a plate, a bowl, and a serving dish. The purpose was "to utilize the everyday task of food and meal as a ritual." The pieces constructed varied in shape, color, texture, and pattern. One student made four triangular pieces; another's collection incorporated animals onto each piece; a third student's collection looked as if it were bleeding blue and gold. "On the last day of class," Penny told me, "we all sat down and had a lovely brunch. And students had to bring something they cooked in their serving dish." 

Penny has been working with ceramics all her life, and has been teaching courses at Plymouth State University since 2002. With years of experience working with the material, Penny has certainly accrued quite the collection of pieces herself. "You learn from each piece," she said. "Some break, some you put away for years. You can't keep everything, But they've all traveled with me." 

With a Master's degree in Fine Arts, working with non-art majors was a new and rewarding experience for her. "I loved the class. It was so nice to work with non-art majors because they learned to get personal with their pieces and feel that they were really artists." Which they certainly are, as is professed by their work. "I wanted them to feel that they could be creative beings, and that they could bring beauty to everyday tasks."