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Adam Nielsen has always liked art in all its forms.

But by his own account he was only ever any good at one particular medium. Pottery.

“When I was a really little kid I enjoyed playing with modeling clay and stuff like that but I didn’t really mess with it again until high school,” Nielsen said. “My junior year I tried drawing and I was terrible at it, then that year I had surgery and couldn’t go to PE so I would go to the ceramics room and throw all day and it just clicked.”

Nielsen enjoyed the challenge of the medium enough that after graduating from Okoboji High School in 2008 he pursued it further at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids.

“I was just going to take ceramics as an open studio class if I could and I ended up taking a lot of them,” Nielsen said.

He counts his high school art teacher Shelagh Gamble and Kirkwood professor Conifer Smith as early mentors in his ceramic endeavors.

It was also at Kirkwood where he first experienced the process of wood firing.

“That’s the aesthetic I’m drawn to most,” Nielsen said. “Ceramics as a medium just has so many facets to it and so many different options. I also always really liked geology and the ceramics process is basically sped up geological time with the formation of different glasses and fluxes and I think those things in combination drew me to it. I also just like the challenge. It’s a lot of fun.”

Two styles have emerged over the course of nearly 20 years dating back to his early school art projects.

One he considers more fun. One he considers more serious.

“I still like drawing and I do that on some pots but they’re pretty childish drawings of dinosaurs and fish — stuff like that — but those drawings are still pretty bad,” Nielsen said with a laugh. “Then I’ve got the ones that are more serious and those are mock wood-fired right now and eventually will be truly wood-fired. Those are the ones I’m more serious about and what I want to create.”

While he stockpiles bricks to build his own wood-fired kiln, Nielsen’s mock wood-firing process involves a shino glaze before sprinkling the pieces with sifted wood ash and then firing them on their sides to get interesting ash runs down the pot.

Before he gets to that point in the process, Nielsen has to form a vase, container, or whatever item strikes his imagination at the potter’s wheel.

“Usually I have a vague idea of what I want to make when I come in and sometimes it doesn’t work out. Sometimes mid-throw I’ll just think nope, this isn’t working, and take it down,” Nielsen said. “Some days it seems like you just can’t throw and it’s constantly sliding off. That still happens to me and I’ve been doing this for almost 18 years.”

But like a basketball player during an off night shooting, there are plenty of other ways to impact the game.

“I try to do something every day even if it’s just 5-10 minutes and if it’s one of those off days throwing, I’ll sand pots or take pictures of finished pieces. There’s always something to do,” Nielsen said.

On the days everything at the wheel seems to work, Nielsen can typically throw a medium-sized vase in about half an hour. Some more complicated pieces he must throw in different sections at a time and can take up a couple hours altogether. Add another 30-45 minutes for trimming, smoothing and glazing and a new piece is nearly ready to be fired.

Nielsen recently switched over to throwing porcelain after using stoneware almost exclusively and has fallen in love with the new type of clay.

“Last year I did some demonstrations for Brad Travis’s classes at Spirit Lake and they use porcelain, which I didn’t know, so he gave me a bag of it throw with and I just loved it,” Nielsen said. “Really I love both. You get different colors out of the glazes. Stoneware is a little bit more forgiving when you’re throwing because it has more tensile strength while porcelain is more soft and creamy, but so smooth and nice to throw.”

After all the hands-on work comes the waiting game.

Sometimes pieces sit on the shelf for months before he’s able to fill the kiln for a firing and once he does they typically sit inside for a day or two to cool down.

The anticipation of the final product is like waiting to open presents on Christmas morning.

“A lot of it’s up to chance, but I can make an educated guess. As long as I can control the amount of oxygen in the kiln, how fast the temperature is climbing and how hot it gets, then I can guess out of a few different options what you’re going to get, but I’ve also been surprised before,” Nielsen said. “Every time I open the kiln I’m a little giddy and try to sneak over too soon and take a look. Then they go from hot to cold too fast and crack or break!”

It’s not something he’d recommend to the students he demonstrates for in area high school art classes, or to those who sign up for the adult classes he teaches from time to time at the Pearson Lakes Art Center in Okoboji.

It was where he had his first gallery exhibit in 2019, showcasing dozens of pieces in the art center’s Goodenow Gallery, something he hopes to do again soon.

“As far as teaching goes, the art center has helped me out a lot by letting me fire pieces here, hosting my first gallery show, so I want to help them out however I can,” Nielsen said. “I also would like to get a strong pottery community going around here. Building a big wood fire kiln like I want to — I’m going to need people to help fire it. I make quite a bit of pieces but it’s going to be huge and I would love to be able to call people and see if they want to throw stuff in the kiln and maybe take a firing shift because that kiln will take two or three days to fire.”

It’s a big goal, but Nielsen has all the bricks he needs. Now it’s time to build.

Other endeavors on the horizon could include another show, perhaps putting together pieces for Art in the Park, but the main goal will always including simply improving at his craft each day.

“I think it’s all about the chase and I learn something new with every firing. I’ve got ideas I want to see come to fruition. I’m never going to be the best at it,” Nielsen said. “But I can always get better.”

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Partly cloudy skies. High 74F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Clear skies. Low 53F. Winds light and variable.