We Are Knox...

By Alison McGauhey

Maureen Mills ’83 wasn’t considering art in any way when she started her
studies at Knox College. In fact, the only reason she signed up for a pottery
class was “to get out of the science building,” she says. But more than 20 years later, Mills, who became a chemistry major, is still thankful she sought that release from the laboratory. She’s now an award-winning artist who has made her living as a potter for the past 17 years.

Mills came to Knox to study science. But when she signed up for that first art class to broaden her horizons beyond “SMC” -- Knox’s Umbeck Science-Mathematics Center -- and started playing with clay, she fell in love with the way it felt. “When you try something new and it turns out you’re actually good at it, you really latch on to it,” Mills, who owns a pottery studio in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, says. “It starts consuming you.”

Mills took a pottery class every term after that first art class and started spending all her spare time at the studio. Even though she graduated with a degree in chemistry, she decided to pursue pottery in graduate school. She has made a living as an artist ever since. Today, she runs a pottery studio with her husband and makes a living selling her work at shows. She has exhibited work across the country and has received many prestigious awards, including a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts grant. In 2004, she received a $30,000 Artist Advancement Award, based on the creativity of her work, from the Greater Piscatiqua Community Foundation.

For the next year, this award will allow her to explore and experiment, perhaps with new glazes and wood-firing techniques for her hand-thrown and altered stoneware, without the pressures of needing to produce commercial work for her living.

 “This award is an honor. . . . I’m looking forward to continually challenging myself.”

Editor’s note: some information for this story was based on an article in the Portsmouth Herald.