T
o say that Kent Follette’s pottery is built on the foundation of south Louisiana’s timeless love for cooking and communal eating is as true as stating that the Mississippi River is muddy, but as far as influences go, Japan might hold the most sway over the veteran ceramicist’s work. That’s where Follette, originally from New Orleans, spent the early 1950s, living in a traditional, 200-year-old Japanese otaku. Follette’s father was stationed there in what was then-called Washington Heights, a housing district for families of servicemen stationed in post-V-J Day Tokyo. Growing up next to a geisha house and traversing the same parade grounds where the Imperial Army held marches just a few years prior, Folette says he first noticed textures and color as well as the way history married with art and how both could blend to form something altogether new. The startling differences between Japan and the United States jolted his attention to design aesthetics for the first time. “I was in awe,” he says. “It was so different from America, from the people and the food, to the street markets, to the architecture — all these details were coming at me for the very first time.” At elementary school in Tokyo, an artisan would visit his class each week to explain how a certain trade worked. One week it was an umbrella maker. The next, a carpenter, and so on. And during a visit to Camp Washington’s on-base hobby shop filled with sundry housewares, gadgets and diversions, Follette decided that whatever path he walked in life, he wanted to make things.
“I take pleasure in being a craftsman,” says the 68-year-old potter, husband and father of two. “Art is one thing, but really I just think of myself as a guy who likes to work with his hands.” Follette’s hands are put to use at the potter’s wheel, and have been daily since leaving academia in 1980. From his home studio he produces roughly 50 pieces each week, just enough to keep up with demand. Inspired by his father, who also cooked, Follette’s work is a blend of beauty and utility, a variety of multi-colored vases, mugs and pots bathed textures and inks. An ikebana wish bowl even celebrates his time spent in Japan. “You never really know how pieces will turn out until they are fired,” he says. “It’s a secret society what happens in the kiln.”
“It’s hard work. This is not magic. And honestly, I get excited every morning to create because a day doesn’t go by that I don’t learn something new.”
We visit in early November, when Follette’s focus is on the five festival shows where his creations will be featured and for sale before Christmas. It’s the edge of the holiday rush, but he is always ready. “I like the challenge of it — the craft of pottery,” Follette says. “It’s hard work. This is not magic. And honestly, I get excited every morning to create because a day doesn’t go by that I don’t learn something new.”
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