Ohmygator Studios
Whimsical, joyful, and every inch filled with charm. When I first discovered the booth at the farmers' market, called Ohmygator Studios, I found myself buying a handmade pottery mug, and then later on another, and so on. I look at them now, on a little shelf in my kitchen, and their joyfulness makes me happy every time. Who is the woman behind Ohmygator Studios, one might ask? And so, I did ask. I reached out to Clair, and she agreed to be interviewed. I was not disappointed. Clair Hamaker is every bit as joyful and charming as her pottery. Disarmingly honest, quick to laugh, and unabashedly happy to be a wife and mother.
I caught up with Clair and asked her these questions:
What do you do for work?
Clair: I’m a mom. I have six children, we homeschool, and homemaking is my work. It’s my most important work, it’s what I enjoy the most. I say all the time, “I make awesome pottery, but I make way better people.” I feel that, as awesome as my pottery is, in the world, there are lots of potters. There are not enough good people; the world could use more, so that’s a priority for me to raise my children to be good, kind people (she said with warmth and joy). I’m a homemaker, a wife, and a mother, and then comes pottery.
I sell my pottery as Clair Hamaker at Ohmygator Studios. The reason our studio is with an “s” is that the idea behind it is that our family is very creative. It isn’t just pottery, it’s all the different kinds of work we do, my children do pottery, jewelry making, music. I am not the whole studio; I am one studio in a conglomerate. We are all very creative.
What do you do for hobbies?
Clair: I love pottery, I love bookbinding, me and my husband love swing dancing. My husband and I met when we were 16 at swing dancing, and we love Lindy Hop; it’s the best dance in the world, in our opinion. I like sewing, music, and reading. Most of the books I read are British, between 1800 and 1950 (she says with an infectious laugh), that’s kind of like my time period. Anything more contemporary than that is usually not to my taste. I also like gardening and flowers. Pottery and gardening often go together for many potters; I'm not sure why. I guess we like being muddy. I love anything to do with the home, too, but I just dabble there. Those are my hobbies. I also daydream a lot. My imagination is big.
What do you find are the most grounding or relaxing hobbies?
Clair: Dancing the Lindy Hop. It makes me smile without even trying; it’s so joyful for me. I love it, and I don’t have to try to be happy; I just am, so that feels grounding. Gardening is very grounding. Writing is not grounding for me (she says with a laugh). If I didn’t try to make money with pottery, it would be more relaxing. Pottery is really, really good. But it has become more stressful as it has become monetary. Once you are creating to sell, it can take out the integrity; it can be less true when you start to create for other people. My pottery is way better when I make what I enjoy vs. what people want to buy. You have to do that to some degree, but I’ve found my sales are better when I focus more on what I like. When you start repeating things to please others, it becomes very formulaic. But if you stay true to yourself, it’s more relaxing, and it's more interesting because people are interesting.
What is your creative outlet?
Clair: Often, I don’t realize how much I’m in my head most of the time; my imagination is very full. I love pottery so much because I can picture it in such detail, even before it’s made. Dreaming can seem very childlike and silly, but I love imagining stories, planning trips, and I just love detail. I like planning things that are fun. That’s my creative outlet, imagining and then planning. I don’t like planning dinner (she laughs). Unless it has a theme, and then all of a sudden, it’s fun. I love planning parties.
We do a lot of “magical moments” in our home. I have chronic anxiety, I’ve been sick my whole adult life, I have very low energy during the day, so we can’t do fun things all the time, but we have “magical moments;” those are fun, spontaneous. It can be as simple as watching “Aladdin” with turbans, seated on towels (for magic carpets); those times really fill me up. Spontaneous tea parties, anything with a theme. Experiencing life through creative play is really, really energizing. I think we can expect it to take too much effort. On Instagram, we see all the fancy parties that take thousands of dollars. But life is much more magical in little bits than we think, and it can be so easy to do. It’s not all the time, 24/7, but we try to have our “magical moments” as often as possible.
What fuels your desire to create?
“I love a kind of magical whimsy”
I think it’s just in me that I must create. I just have to, whether it’s pottery, flowers, sewing, or how I raise my children. I am a very visual and tactile person; it’s just who I am. When I can’t create, life’s more difficult. So, I have lots of hobbies. If you were to go into my house, you’d find bookbinding, pottery, painting, and sewing; I love all of it. But I’m not good at creating just to create. It has to feel important in some way. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote a book called Gifts From The Sea, and she talks about how women have the need not just to create, but for their effort to mean something. I feel like that is true for me.
I have really bad anxiety at times, especially around writing, so I’m not a writer, per se, but I am a storyteller! I tell my children stories, whimsical, fanciful stories, and a lot of my pottery creates a story too. Storytelling is popular and trendy at the moment; I don’t mean to be trendy, but I think there is a need right now for people to feel like they are part of something, participating in life. I love a kind of magical whimsy. Secret Garden, Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis, and British village life, those kinds of things. And their influence shows up in my work. Everything is so quick and so big these days, I like to take it back to slower and more charming for myself and my kids. I’m really filled up by wholesomeness, at home and in my work. My work is really wholesome, though, every now and again, I’ll get a little sassy. I like to bring virtues to my work, wholesomeness, whimsy, truthful innocence, and just a little bit of stinker; puns, dry humor, I love it so much.
“I like to bring virtues to my work, wholesomeness, whimsy, truthful innocence, and just a little bit of stinker; puns, dry humor, I love it so much.”
What is your favorite medium (or top 3)?
Clair: Pottery, sewing, flowers, and swing dancing. Those are my four favorite things; they bring me the most joy of anything, besides my family. I consider them all mediums, even family is a medium in a way.
Sewing was one of my first loves, I love sewing. Even now, I make little adventure dolls. But I’ve been nervous about bringing them to the market to sell yet. They are so much fun! Each one comes with a packet of items, along with its own adventure, like fishing, cooking, or gardening.
How did you get started?
Clair: Sewing was huge in the beginning. I think I’ve just been creating my whole life. I wanted to work for Disney as a kid. I’ve always drawn and done creative projects. It was just normal to me. I never thought I should take an art class in school, and I went through four different majors in college before I ended up in art. When I finally chose art, I had a professor who said, “This is, of course, where you should have been the whole time!”
For pottery, I didn’t start until the end of my art degree. It was funny, my husband took pottery years before, and from the moment we got married, he wanted to get a pottery wheel, and I was always like, “Too expensive!” Then years later, I took my pottery class, and the second I got out of class, I was like, “We need a kiln, we need a wheel!” And so now we have all this stuff, and does he get to use it? No, he doesn’t. He could, but he’s too busy these days.
What is your process/what do you do with your finished product?
Clair: I sell it at the farmers' market. I also like to just make them and give them to people. I don’t actually enjoy selling things. The world is poor, and I know how much effort went into my work, and nobody wants to pay the actual cost of it, not even me. My mom and I will sometimes look at my work and say, “I wouldn’t pay for that”(she laughs). When I do choose to sell my work, I realize that making it has taken time away from my kids and family, so I try not to price my pottery too low, but I try to be fair in my pricing at the same time. But it is more fun to just make pottery for people.
What kind of creative space do you have?
Clair: I have a studio, a tiny room. I used to have a big room, but I gave it to my children for their music. I moved to a smaller space, and then all the other art supplies moved into that space, so I have a corner. But the truth is, I have pockets all over the house, and my husband only has a shelf (she laughs warmly). Really, I have about a 5 x 6 space, and I have a kiln. I’m not always tidy in all of my life, but in my studio, I am very tidy.
What words of encouragement would you like to share with others?
Clair: You don’t have to be a prima ballerina to enjoy a ballet class. You don’t have to have your work in a museum for your painting or pottery to be of value. This is something I had to learn myself. I have always created, but when you are in academia, there is such a push to publish, exhibit, etc.. But really, if you write, you are a writer; you don’t have to publish to be a writer. If you create something, then you are a creative person; if you make art, you are an artist.
It’s really important to be okay with wasting things, whether it’s time, energy, or materials. Waste is part of the process of learning, failing, and trying. Trying means you are going to do it “not right” a whole bunch, and that’s part of the process. That is actually good. You learn more from trying than not trying.
Be honest with yourself. Is this something you want to do? If it is, then you should do it! But also, be honest with your life balance. I can tell when I am spending too much time in the studio, I get really unhappy, my kids get really unhappy. That is not worth it to me. Being honest with yourself about time commitment.
Find the joy, and make art, don’t be afraid. I’m afraid all the time and have no faith in my work. Be gentle with yourself, and keep pushing. Because a lot of the time when the art gets ugly, it’s really only five steps from awesome. Just keep going.
For life/art balance, you really need to know yourself. For me, I try really hard to be in the studio with my kids when they're making art. Because I have a hard time concentrating on my art and my kids, it's good for me to practice being present and enjoying that time with them. I have my whole 50s and 60s to do art by myself. But I don’t have very much time with my kids, or to make art with them.
Quotable Clair:
“I love a kind of magical whimsy. ”
“Find the joy, and make art, don’t be afraid.”
“If you create something, then you are a creative person; if you make art, you are an artist.”
“Women have the need not just to create, but for their effort to mean something.”
“Trying means you are going to do it “not right” a whole bunch, and that’s part of the process. That is actually good. You learn more from trying than not trying. ”
“Be gentle with yourself… a lot of the time when the art gets ugly, it’s really only five steps from awesome. ”
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All photos used with permission. Photos by Clair Hamaker.
(Text briefly edited for continuity and length)