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I started my “career” as a potter at the young age of four or five on my grandparents’ farm in Missouri. While my grandmother thought I was outside having tea parties with my dolls, I was actually making mud cookies and pies from the rich red Missouri soil.

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One of my proudest creations was a blueberry pie decorated with bits of blue-purple coal slag. When I showed it to my grandfather, he introduced me to even more possibilities, showing me where I could dig nearly black clay, yellow-gold clay, and almost white clay around the farm. Suddenly, I had a whole palette to work with, and I happily made striped cookies, polka-dot donuts, and layered cakes from my new collection of clay.

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Of course, every good pie needed a fancy edge. One day I slipped into my grandparents’ dining room and borrowed one of my grandmother’s beautifully textured “company” serving spoons. It made the perfect pattern in the edge of my mud pie. Unfortunately, I was caught returning it.

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My grandmother wasn’t thrilled that her special spoon had become one of my pottery tools, but after I showed her what I had made, her expression softened into a proud smile I have never forgotten.

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That childhood curiosity has stayed with me ever since. Today, I still create large bowls with fluted and carved edges—a small tribute to my grandmother, that treasured serving spoon, and the place where my love of clay first began.