Sara Ballek

I had the opportunity to speak remotely with ceramic artist Sara Ballek from her transitional and temporary residence in Paducah, Kentucky. Our conversation touched on the pivotal role the Asheville region played in launching her career and the vibrant community that shaped her artistic voice. Sara also reflected on the striking parallels between the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the upheaval brought on by recent natural disasters. From the challenges of displacement to the resilience required to rebuild a studio practice, she offers a candid look at how periods of uncertainty can reshape both life and creative work.

Sara Ballek: I am originally from an area north of Chicago. I went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, then made Ashivelle my home base in August of 2016.

Randi O’Brien (ROB): Have you been a ceramic artist the entire time, or what brought you to ceramics as a career? 

Sara: I originally went to college to study art education. My whole life, I'd been making art, but mostly, I thought I would be doing something with drawing, watercolor, or something illustrative. I had always been intrigued by the potter's wheel and dabbled a little bit with it. I think it was towards the end of my second year of university that my guidance counselor pointed out that I had completed most of my studio courses and would need to take mostly education courses. It was important for me to be an artist, not just a teacher; I want the best of both. 

I started thinking about what teaching looked like for me; I don't want to be an elementary or high school art teacher. I wanted to teach it in some way, somehow, but I thought that the only way to do so was to go through with an art education degree. I realized I needed to switch my degree. For a while, I was doing a double major in drawing and ceramics because I couldn't let go of my first love – drawing. Then, I got absorbed in ceramics. From then on out, I saw myself doing this as my career. I ended up finishing school with a degree in ceramics.

My husband and I met in the ceramics program when I was in undergrad. He was out of school two years before I was and doing a residency in Paducah; I was still in college, and we moved to Asheville the summer right after I had graduated in 2016 because of the clay scene. 

The first time we visited Asheville, it was a quick twenty-four-hour trip. We stopped in to Odyssey ClayWorks just to see the space and place and kind of made that a goal; like, hey, this seems like a great spot to get started. When we first moved to the area, I took an independent study there just to learn about the studio and see if it was a place I wanted to be. From there, I became a summer resident, which is a pretty specific role there; you help with all of the kids' summer programs. It helped me dip my toes in the water with teaching that summer. Then, I stayed on after that summer as a studio assistant. After, it was almost two or a year and a half of being a studio assistant that a residency position opened up that I accepted.

At this time in my life, I had been a nanny full-time for two and a half years while also trying to pursue a full-time clay career. I was stretched thin. I started teaching quite a bit at Odyssey and in the community in those years, but I kept finding myself saying no to opportunities in the clay realm because of nannying. At this point, I started to see things balance out a little bit to where I thought to myself, “Okay, I think I'm going to take the plunge and leave my full-time job nannying and go into clay full-time.” So, when I got offered the residency and knew I would have more space to make this a reality, I never looked back. 

ROB: When did you leave the Odyssey space and start your own space and studio practice? Describe your current studio space to our readers. Is it communal or private? What was it like pre-flood?

Sara: My timeline is a bit unconventional because COVID hit when I was there. I was there until October of 2021, and that summer, a few other artists who were in the area had to move out of their studio space because of the COVID shutdown. At that time, my wheels were already turning, with the realization that I was ready to transition from Odyssey and invest in my private practice. So I started renting a space with three other artists, and we, at the time that I came in, decided to name ourselves Fire Pink Clay Collective. Fire Pink is a flower; it's this red, really pretty flower that you see around occasionally. 

I just hit my three-year anniversary with them all within the same week Helene hit.

The space has three other clay artists – they had been in this space for a year before I got in there. It’s a big pole barn garage space attached to a larger warehouse. Thankfully, that studio space was not damaged at all. We were one of the few. We were right outside of Asheville. So, about a fifteen to twenty-minute drive outside of where many homes and businesses were affected. There was tree fall and stuff like that, but we didn't have the larger trees; they were set back from the building. We had a minor rain damage that got into one corner but didn't affect anything. About thirty-six hours before the hurricane and flooding, we threw big plastic sheets over our kilns and hoped for the best. 

Later that night, we could hear the winds start to come; we could hear trees falling and transformers blowing outside. It was surreal. You think, "There is no way I'm hearing that many trees falling outside."

The next day was very eerie quiet. You're just trying to wrap your head around it all, asking yourself, “Is this real life?”

ROB: After surviving that initial event and shock, was a natural sense of community coming together? Can you talk a bit about your sense of community, both within the regional arts community and big picture/national community?

Sara: Within our neighborhood, everyone was out on foot, so you started stopping, talking, and exchanging your news. People in our apartment building, who usually kept to themselves, were all out, talking daily and checking in on each other.

My mom moved to Asheville too, two and a half years ago, too. She lives down the street, which was weird, too; I couldn't reach her during the storm. I knew she was at work when everything was going down, but it was just one of those things where we would have to commit to hunkering down and walking to her house in the morning. But then I started to worry. I just started to do this thing where I was thinking hard about her, and I hoped she felt that connection. And sure enough, 10 minutes later, she came knocking on our door. She works for Trader Joe's, so she was able to give us some insight into what was happening with the grocery stores, where all of the resources were being gathered, and where hotspots were for cell service.

Zooming out on the regional creative community, the following day, it was Saturday morning, we were making instant coffee over a backpacking stove, and there was a knock at the door. It was one of my studio mates, and she wanted to go up to the studio and check on it because we had no idea what state things were. So we got in her van and set out. We knew we couldn't drive our usual route from where we lived because half the route to the studio is along Riverside Drive, which follows the French Broad River and connects to the River Arts District, where many studios had been affected.

On our drive across the river and as we passed the River Arts District, traffic was nearly at a stop. People were witnessing the aftermath of what happened, in shock as the river had nearly doubled in width and businesses that people frequented were underwater. As soon as we started to drive over the bridge, all I had seen was what was within our neighborhood, just within a few blocks' radius. I looked over and saw just the top, just the little top of a building. Whole buildings were underwater. The river was twice its size, and I was just in shock. Like, am I actually seeing this? The gravity of it all starts to hit you. And there is just this weird silence because everyone is taking it all in. 

What usually takes fifteen to twenty minutes to do a round trip took two and a half hours to get to and from our studio. We would have to reroute our path because of downed trees. 

Eventually, we got to our studio. We went in, and the power was out. At that point, some people in Asheville still had water, like a trickle. We hadn't completely lost water yet, so we were testing the faucets. You're not thinking of the long-term or the magnitude of the damage. So, in our minds, it was like, okay, hopefully the power comes back on. But the reality was that about 85% of my friends in the artist community of Asheville lost their studios. Everyone is in this state of grieving and chaos.

From my experience, you also take on this survivor's guilt. I felt incredibly guilty that I had a studio that was okay, you know, that I still have my equipment, that I still have my stuff there. There are a lot of conflicting emotions rushing in.

ROB:  There is the emotional trauma of having survived something and the survivor's guilt, knowing you still have all your possessions, but it doesn't take away the fact that this event disrupted your life. I think it is easy for people to connect the dots when objects are physically damaged; these equal a set monetary value. But when your whole life is disrupted, shut down, or paused, you see no tangible object destroyed but a disrupted way of life and access. I think this element of disaster and disruptions is not adequately discussed.

Sara: Over the years, on social media, I've seen other people go through tragic events or a natural disaster, and I feel for them and have empathy. But it is tough to know what it must be like until you go through it. Your life is just upside down. You're trying to find a sense of normalcy in it all. It's definitely a wave of emotions. 

We went through COVID-19 not too long ago, and the shutdown's effects. And many of us were talking about how this wasn't our first time adapting quickly to a situation and living in this uncertainty. 

In this case, it's slightly different when a natural disaster happens. For example, that building's not there; it doesn't exist anymore. I can’t go back to it when this unfolds in a few months. There is a more significant lasting impact. Also, with the pandemic, we – the whole world – were in this collective situation, but in this case, it is isolating to go through this. Many people are affected by the hurricane, but it's also so small compared to the rest of the world events. 

This is more personal and intimate than the pandemic. You're not just grieving the normalcy and the way of life you had, but the places. Your body is in emotional overdrive, and you're so exhausted, too. It comes in these waves; the first week or two, you're just in constant survival mode every day. We kept busy gathering water and the resources we needed for the day before it got dark. But then, as the ripple expanded and we started to process further, the new wave of grief stems from the clay distributor that I get my clay from, that the community studios get their clay from, that universities get their clay from is washed away – we grieve this resource and a loss of legacy. Then, there is another wave of survivor's guilt. I know I shouldn't, but I also understand that some people lost everything, including their jobs and studios. Then there is the wave of: for us, this is still so prominent and at the forefront of everything we are doing, but the rest of the world is still carrying on, and it almost feels like it just fades to the background. 

I suggest that people stay engaged with the rebuilding efforts in the Asheville area. People are going to need sustained support. There are going to be people who might not have the energy to share and expose themselves to what they are working through right now. This community will need patience.

I owe so much to Asheville for igniting my career. This place encouraged me to start a career in clay much sooner than I thought I could.

ROB: To segway off of how Asheville has ignited your career, can you talk a bit about a piece or a series that you created that holds any significance to you, whether it's for the surface or if there are particular messages it conveys? 

Sara: Last year, during this same fall/winter time, I was working on a body of work that included a flower brick vase. I got very involved in making this series because they reference my grandmothers. I'm very close with both of my grandmas, and I'm fortunate to have both still in my life. But last summer, I was around them a bit more, and my grandma has this green couch that has orange and white flowers on it, with little specks of blue in there. This couch is like a time capsule. When I see it, it's like home to me; I would say it's been around longer than I have been, or before I was born. When I was working on these pieces, I was thinking of the women in my life, my grandparents, my godmother – she passed when I was a girl, but was such a prominent figure in my childhood; I have a lot of her old little trinket pieces and her old tins and stuff with cool floral patterns on it, and scarves – and so I was thinking of all of them as I was doing this.

I never really name my pieces or make a work of art thinking of one person the entire time. In this series, I made a point to be very intentional with my color choices and the objects themselves. I named pieces after the women in my life. I titled one work “Marianne's Mercer.” She's referred to as "Mary Anne" in the States, but "Marianne" is pronounced with an "uh" sound at the end in German. Mercer is where she has had a place in northern Wisconsin since the 70s, and that's where that green couch lives. That place, that couch, is a time capsule. I was thinking of forms similar to a time capsule that had protected interior spaces.  Someone might see these and see a floral pattern on a jar, but it felt more intentional in my mind. I named one after my Omi, whose name is Berta, but everyone calls her Birdie, so I called it “Birdie's Blossom Brick.” Still, to this day, she creates extravagant floral arrangements.

You can explore more of Sara Ballek’s work by visiting her Instagram page @saraballek_ceramics.