Local Potter Goes Primetime

Annapolitan Megan Evans shares her art with the nation

by Carrie Steele

This spring, you’ll see a familiar face on a national network. Home and Garden Television traveled to Maryland’s capital last week to feature Annapolis potter and ArtFX Gallery owner Megan Evans on its show That’s Clever.

“They sent an application via email in mid-August,” said Evans. “I figured, what the heck, I have just as much chance as the next person. So I filled it out and submitted pictures. Sometimes I don’t believe in myself as a potter; I never thought I’d be on TV.”

The show’s producers thought otherwise.

“I totally wrote it off because it had been a few months,” Evans said. “Then I got back home from my dad’s funeral in November and I had a message from the producer saying, ‘I need to talk to you.’”

Filming, which took place last week, required Evans to create several versions of her epiphany piece from her Tactile Collection, each in different stages of creation.

The Tactile Collection features glazed vases and bowls that she hand carves with patterns. She begins, she says, with no thought of how she’s going to do the carving. Each piece takes four or five hours to craft, says Evans, who uses two small metal ribbon tools for detailing: a small triangle and a quarter-inch round loop. The first she plays to get little tick marks and lines; the round one makes swooping lines.

“It’s exactly like a cooking show,” Evans said, where the chef shows pre-prepared stages of a dish. “They have five ‘stepouts’ or five steps. They’ll film me doing something, then pretend it’s an hour later.” The filming will make Evans’ work seem easy as she fast-forwards the same piece into the next stage.

For her television premier, Evans felt few jitters. “I do a lot of demonstrating,” she said. “This is more a demo than anything.”

Evans — a short-haired redhead with thin wire glasses and potter’s hands — talked about her pottery on City Dock for the cameras, then demonstrated her craft to the production crew at her studio off West Street.

Producers filmed some three hours and 45 minutes, which will boil down to about five to seven minutes of air-time on That’s Clever, says Evans.

Watch for Megan Evans’ segment on That’s Clever on HGTV this spring. Check www.hgtv.com for updated listings.