Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Master potter Claudio Reginato loves his work and teaching pottery when his students embrace it and succeed.
The Italian artist visited Sweet Home High School last week, providing demonstrations to students in class and then holding a workshop for a half dozen participants over the weekend.
“Gelindo Ferrin (SHHS art teacher) invited me,” Reginato said. He told him, “If you want to and you go to America, you will be welcomed in Sweet Home. I had the opportunity to have a workshop in this school.”
Reginato has won five first-place awards for his technique and four for aesthetics at the World Tournament of Throwing. He also has won numerous second-place awards. He and another potter consistently place in the top three at the tournament. Ferrin, who worked with Reginato for six months in Italy, attended the tournament and won in one division. Reginato won the rest.
Reginato is a third-generation potter, he said. At age 15, “I asked my father, please teach me. I like your job.”
He has happily continued in his work over the decades “because it’s creative,” he said. “The clay is magic. Clay is relaxing. Clay is a good friend. Clay gives you satisfaction.
“Throwing is not so easy,” he said, adding it takes confidence with the wheel to have quality results.
“Now it’s easy,” Reginato said. “I have many years of experience, but with clay you must be humble. You need to be friends, gentle with it. You have to understand it. You have to know about it.”
Reginato teaches pottery at home and at workshops on the road.
He enjoys teaching, he said, “if I have interested people. When they (get) results, I enjoy it very much.”
Teaching is just one more way he can leave something behind him also, he said.
“It thought it was very good,” said Community Chapel Pastor Mark McCartin, who was one of the local residents who attended a seminar Reginato gave on Saturday. “The guy is very gifted. It’s amazing to watch someone who has become a master of a craft.”
McCartin attended a Linn-Benton Community College class, and he took classes in pottery in high school.
“It was very inspirational,” he said. It might even drive him to buy his own wheel and kiln and set up his own studio, he said.
He learned a lot watching Reginato, “but to put those things into practice would require my constantly doing it,” McCartin said. McCartin tried some of Reginato’s techniques. He does some things differently, and it would take time for him to get the feel of those techniques down.
He appreciated Sweet Home’s art students, he said. “I think they were interested.”
They asked questions, and Ferrin said they were fairly mesmerized.
“I think it was a good opportunity for them,” Reginato said. “I think the kids enjoy it with Gelindo because I saw that they pay attention.”
Reginato arrived in Sweet Home on May 2 and headed home to Bassano del Grappa near Venice, Italy, on May 8.