For more than 35 years, my hands shaped clay into objects meant to be used, held, and lived with. Mugs, bowls, vessels—functional pieces that carried quiet stories into other people’s homes. But time has a way of speaking through the body. Eventually, five-gallon buckets of glaze felt heavier than they used to, and fifty-pound bags of clay stopped being routine and started becoming a reckoning. Loading, unloading, hauling work to craft fairs and farmer’s markets—it all began to take more than it gave.
So, I let it go. Not all at once, but in pieces.
Even while I was deep in ceramics, I never stayed in one lane. I painted. I drew. I wandered. Gallery owners would shake their heads, urging me to focus, to pick a single medium and stick with it. But my mind doesn’t work that way. With ADHD and autism, curiosity isn’t a side note—it’s the engine. And honestly, those “distractions” made my pottery better. Every brushstroke, every sketch fed back into the clay. It was never about switching mediums; it was about expanding the conversation.
After I sold the kiln and packed away the tools, I turned fully toward fine art. It felt like a natural evolution—same creative voice, just a different surface. But reality has its own palette. In one of the most economically depressed areas in the country, selling fine art wasn’t just difficult—it felt almost impossible. When people are choosing between food and shelter, art becomes a luxury few can afford.
So, once again, I adapted.
I turned to the internet and found a new canvas in surface design—another way to create, to share, and to keep the work alive without the physical strain that once defined it.
For over 35 years my hands created functional ceramic items. As I got older lifting five gallon buckets of glaze and 50 pounds of clay began to take a toll on my body. Hauling ceramic items to craft fairs and farmer’s markets was getting harder and harder. So, I had to let it go.
While creating my pottery over the years. I still dabbled in watercolor and oil paint. It drove the gallery owners crazy, they wanted me to stick with one medium. Having ADHD and being autistic , sticking to one wasn’t going to be possible. Besides, my painting and drawing imporved my ceramic designs, just a differnt canvas.
After selling the kiln and other supplies I turned to the fine arts. But selling fine art in one of the most economically depressed areas in the US was like a total waste of time, no one buys art when food and shelter comes first. So I turned to the internet and surface design.
The Museum
Connie Mason Bennett Art and Surface Design 