Eden Prairie potter’s work blossoms at Arboretum Spring Flower Show

Eden Prairie potter Mindy Sisk specializes in creating ceramic art with lively nature scenes and sprawling landscapes, making her the perfect fit to be a featured artist in the Arboretum’s Spring Flower Show.

Sisk’s work is on display in the Birds and Botanicals exhibition at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum through March 16. She is one of three featured artists. Arboretum volunteer Pamela Friedland saw Sisk’s work last summer at Art at St. Kate’s, a juried outdoor art fair in St. Paul. Friedland acts as assistant to Wendy DePaolis, curator of art and sculpture at the Arboretum, leading to Sisk’s inclusion in the show. DePaolis said the plants and flowers at the show are the perfect setting for Sisk’s one-of-a-kind works of art.

“Mindy’s focus on nature matches our mission concerning art at the Arboretum, which is to more deeply engage people with nature through art,” DePaolis said. “When I first saw the focus on birds in her pottery, I knew her art would be compelling to our visitors. These charming renditions on vases, plates and bowls offer a visual feast which captures the beauty and serenity of our natural world.”

Sisk has been honing her ceramics skills for roughly 20 years and selling her work for the last decade, but her love for art stretches back to childhood. Her older cousins would draw pictures for her, leading her to a love of painting and drawing. She started as an art major while attending Montana State University, and though she eventually changed the focus of her degree, her interest in art remained.

“When I first went to college, I took a pottery class,” Sisk said. “I’d never taken pottery before, and after a whole semester, I wasn’t that good at it. Now I just laugh at that because some people take to the wheel right away. Other people, it takes a lot of practice, and I was one of the latter.”

She started her journey with ceramics more earnestly while working as a paraprofessional at Hopkins West Junior High School not long after moving to Eden Prairie in 2003. The art teacher let her play around with clay, which inspired her to take some community education courses. Having late afternoons, summers and Christmas vacations off made being a paraprofessional and a potter an ideal combination.

When the Edina Art Center’s pottery program shuttered during the pandemic, she moved to her current studio, CeramicSow in Hopkins, and became a full-time potter in spring 2021.

She now teaches classes at the studio and sells her work at art fairs and festivals, which studio owner Adama Sow helped her navigate early on.

“When he opened up his studio, I started taking classes there because he was instrumental in getting me started in the art fair world,” she said.

The studio has become more than just a workspace – it’s a community of fellow potters who have become friends. The artists range in experience and age, with one potter recently celebrating his 90th birthday. Sisk spends anywhere from two to five days a week at the studio, though she also has a home studio space. 

She typically does the messier parts of the process at CeramicSow, including throwing, glazing, and, of course, firing her pieces in the studio kilns. At home, she uses her personal equipment to trim and decorate her works, as well as hand-build more complex pieces. Sisk uses a technique called sgraffito, where she carves intricate designs into the surface of the clay. 

“My thing that I do, that a lot of potters don’t do, is the decorating stage,” she said. “To me, that’s one of the more fun parts because, like I said, I came as a painter and drawer, and it’s like this is my canvas. The pottery is my canvas.”

Some of her pieces are purely decorative, but many serve as functional works of art. Her most popular creations include utensil holders, vases, bowls, and platters, but she also makes garden stacks, trinket dishes, salt cellars, the occasional sculpture, and more. Pieces with small flaws often take up residence in her home, and her favorite piece is usually the most recent one to come out of the kiln.

She keeps a notebook by her bed for any designs that spring to mind. Some of her pieces borrow from photos she’s taken on nature walks, while others are entirely imagined. She freehands design elements like flowers, while more involved images of foxes, birds or other animals start with a sketch. Many of her visuals come from nature, often inspired by her surroundings here in Minnesota as well as her home state of Montana.

Her work is always changing, which suits her as someone who gets bored easily. Thankfully, pottery is the perfect practice for a person prone to boredom. All the different stages of the creation process make it a collection of skills rolled into one. While she does try to make items that her customers like, she refuses to settle into one niche or make pottery purely for profit. 

“I do things seasonally because I am inspired by the environment, but for the Arboretum one, I did make some special pieces just for that sale,” she said. “For the most part, I’m thinking: What are the kind of things my customers might like, things that I’ve done in the past, and then trying to have some wow pieces for applying to art shows.”

Larger pieces also serve as attention-getters while she’s selling her work. They bring people into her booth, and while they may only leave with a mug, she’s glad to offer a range in size and price so that more people can have her art in their homes. She aims to strike a balance between offering accessible art and doing the work that really feeds her creativity.

Her relationship with her customers has also been a source of inspiration. Years ago, a customer compared her work to Japanese ceramics that compel a person to turn the art around to see the entire winding image. The comment resonated with her so much that she still loves making what she calls story bowls.

Another customer recently showed her that a Mindy Sisk butter dish was at the top of her Christmas list. Seeing the connection people have with her work reminds her of the artists that inspired her early on. Many of their artworks are still on display around her home, so it’s gratifying to now be on the artist side of the interaction. 

“I’m lucky. I’m not a young potter who has to make their living doing this per se, so that gives me the freedom to make what I want to make,” Sisk said. “If I have an idea of something, it’s the challenge to see can you get that idea from your head to an actual piece of pottery.”

It’s the time of year when Sisk and her fellow potters are applying to art shows for the summer and starting to plan for the year ahead. She often does a handful of summer and holiday shows with a couple of sales in between, so she has her sights set on a few familiar events as well as some new additions. Making enough pieces for each event keeps her plenty busy, though sales can depend on weather conditions.

Along with being selected for the Spring Flower Show, she’s also been chosen as a featured artist for this year’s Art at St. Kate’s on July 12. Sisk said it’s flattering to be handpicked for events like these and have her hard work noticed. While she’s not interested in delving into the difficulties of online sales and shipping, she looks forward to challenging herself with more in-person opportunities.

“I’m just always trying to improve, just always trying to do something better, do something more interesting,” she said. “That’s the challenge.”