Diane Walters

A life immersed in amateur astronomy, ceramics, education and storytelling is the art that Diane Walters creates. She has been a potter for 44 years. In addition to creating pottery, she teaches ceramics in the studio in her own backyard. She also hosts art-cations” in her Gallery Suite where one can buy local art off the walls. Diane is dedicated to making the magic of art and creation accessible to everyone while telling a compelling story of how potters mirror both earthly and Cosmic evolution.

According to Diane Walters, aka D.E. Walters, there are a lot of reasons why anyone becomes something. “My father and my mother were both, what we would call, makers; they were children of the depression. They upcycled and they recycled. They learned how to make do with what they had and usually could make something out of nothing and make it beautiful at the same time.”

On a lifelong practice of art, Diane reflects: “My father was a craftsman and an artist. His motto was, ‘if you are going to do something, do it well’. This motto has been a blessing and a curse for me because, typical of most artists, I experience so many failures.”

As an adult, Diane apprenticed with MC Richards, an American poet, potter, and writer best known for her book Centering: in Pottery, Poetry and the Person. “While working with M.C., I embraced failure. What I finally learned is that it is failure that makes you the artist, not the successes.”

The mentor taught her to plug away in order to develop the skill most essential to artistry, perseverance. ‘’It’s the fact that you are not afraid to fail because you know you’ll just try again ‘because you’re just not finished yet’. I shape the clay but working with clay has shaped me. This craft has taught me patience and to become more detail-oriented. Pottery has schooled me and softened all my edges.”