Editorial Cartoon
Jackie Worden’s father was a practical businessman.
In junior high, Worden remembers her father asking her art teacher at a Parent-Teacher Association meeting, “She can make it, but is she going to be able to pay for the paste and glue and paper?”
Now after 20 years of making pottery, she no longer has to worry about being able to afford her paste, glue and paper.
Worden is displaying her “Earthstar Creations” this weekend at Celebration: A Festival of the Arts.
The senior library specialist at Mary J. Booth Library moved to Charleston in 1984.
Not knowing many people, a friend suggested her to take a class in the craft depot in the University Union where students and community members could do pottery, weaving and make candles and tools.
“So, I took a class and fell in love with clay,” she said.
That spring, the craft depot class volunteered at Celebration: A Festival of the Arts, where she learned locals would buy her clay and she could get more to do the same thing.
As her interest grew in ceramics, she began to sell her art at fairs.
Worden’s father never really understood why someone would sell a plate at an art fair for $6 when they could go to K-Mart and buy four plates for $5.
One night, her father stayed up until 4 a.m. to help her get ready for the show and helped her load up to be ready by 6 a.m.
“By the time we were all done, my father said to me ‘Now I understand why these things are $10 a piece,'” Worden said. “I think whenever you do an art fair, some people visit it like a museum, but it’s also an opportunity to teach people and educate them about the process taken.”
Worden works with porcelain and a type of clay called stoneware when building pottery to create ceramic jewelry, pinch pots and vases, using natural, architectural and other textures.
“Clay is so much fun because the possibilities with it are infinite,” Worden said. “No matter how many times I do the same thing, it always turns out different.”
Art is created by using your motor skills and thinking outside the box, she said.
“So much of today is revolved around art,” she said. “It’s important to be able to understand things that are of a visual nature like symbols and how to communicate with others. It’s also about expressing yourself in more than one way.”
Jamie Willis, a Mattoon resident, has known Worden for about 15 years.
“She’s one of those people I felt like I’ve always known,” she said.
Willis and Worden had taken a ‘spinners and weavers’ class and worked together in Booth Library.
Willis remembers asking Worden for a particular subject she was having trouble finding in the library.
Without looking at a thing, she went through the aisles and walked right up to the book and flipped a few pages and found it.
“She has a background in botanical and a mind like a steel trap,” Willis said. “She has her own unique style and if you knew her personality and seen her work, they’re one and the same.”
Charleston resident, Sue Yocum, has known Worden for 14 years.
The longtime friends used to take midnight walks after working at Booth.
“In general, any time I do something with Jackie, it turns into an adventure. It always gets kind of silly and fun-loving,” Yocum said. “Jackie’s a very fun-loving person and she’s very creative.”
