AUArts Meet Our Alumni: Natasha Alphonse

Hear from an AUArts alumni on how they got into art, chose AUArts, and where their career has taken them.

Natasha’s roots began in drawing, but she fell in love with pottery. She owns her own ceramics business and studio, creating vessels that add beauty, provide practical, everyday use, and grow more interesting with time.

We had the chance to chat with Natasha about her experience at Alberta University of the Arts in the Bachelor of Fine Arts — Drawing program (class of 2012), her career, and what advice she has to offer.

Where are you currently living and what do you do?

I'm currently living in Seattle, and I'm a full-time potter. I have my own business and my own studio. I make production pottery as well as teach small classes at my studio.

Did you do this straight out of high school?

I graduated in 2012, and I got a degree in Drawing. I only took a ceramics class my last semester of my fourth course year. So, it was just something I was interested in.

I moved to Seattle right after I graduated, and continued taking small classes around the city, just for fun. It became something I was more and more interested in and just started doing a lot of it. I was working in restaurants, not really sure what I wanted to do in the arts, job wise. I just organically started doing more pottery, and then decided to jump with both feet into making it a business about four years ago.

Did you imagine yourself going down a different path at the time?

I wasn't really sure how my degree in Drawing would translate into a certain path. I went to school because I enjoyed drawing and art, and I didn't have a huge plan as to what kind of job that would result in. When I graduated, I was kind of open to anything.

When you were growing up, were you always interested in art?

Yeah. I have quite a bit of family around me who are artists, so they always really supported me being artistic and exposed me to a lot of different things. I have a number of aunts and uncles who are art teachers, and they're also artists. It was all because of them that I was really nurtured in that way.

Do you have advice for someone whose family wasn’t so supportive?

I don't know. I feel like that's so different than my own personal experience. But at the end of the day, what I would say is you're the one who's going to be living your life. Taking advice from parents who discourage you from following what you want to do, maybe isn't the best in the long run. Trust yourself a bit more.

What was the most important thing you learned at AUArts?

The biggest thing that I really enjoyed was being able to test out a whole range of mediums, and that amount of freedom. You really get to know yourself and learn what you're good at, or what excites you, instead of not really knowing before you go into school what you want to be as an artist. So just having that amount of freedom to explore is, I think was the most amazing thing. And time and being around a community where you're just focused on thinking about art and being in a little bubble. I think that's a really amazing place to be.

It’s just such a different way of being and existing. Everyone's talking about art, you're making art, you're being critical about it, and it just kind of makes your brain think about the world differently.

Did you feel like the program was open and flexible, in terms of trying different things?

That’s kind of the reason why I chose to go into the Drawing department because it was a little bit more open-ended in terms of exploring different mediums. It wasn't just drawing.

I chose that because I was still wanting to explore a bunch of different mediums. It doesn't really confine you to one specifically, whereas maybe the more technical ones like print or something, you have a certain kind of medium that you're bound to almost in some ways.

And the cool thing is, you don't have to know. That’s one thing instructors kept telling me too, before I decided to choose my major. It’s not just a box; you don't have to decide what you want to be in this little box.

I read that you grew up in Saskatchewan. Has this influenced a lot of your work?

I grew up pretty far north in a reservation called Black Lake First Nations. Everyone, I think, is basically making work because of our own special circumstances of how we see the world and how we were brought up in the world. There’s a lot of nature where I grew up, and we did a lot of things outdoors. That’s also the appeal of working with clay, working with really natural mediums and the idea of working with earth, too.

How did you end up moving to Calgary and studying at AUArts?

I have an aunt and uncle who live in Calgary, and they're both art teachers. They were always nurturing my artistic side. They kind of threw the idea out there that if I ever wanted to go to art school, there was this really awesome college and that I maybe should consider it. They kind of planted the seed for coming there and going to that school. And I thought it sounded like a good idea and something that I wanted to do.

If you’re talking to your high school self, what would you tell yourself?

At that point, you don't really have these ideas formed of your belief systems, or how you're going to exist in the world, but maybe we have to give like our younger self a bit more credit. We know some things, who we might want to be, you know?