Paul Metivier: From Printmaking to Pottery

Paul Metivier is a pottery professor at the college. Metivier started his career in community college as an art major.  Metivier is currently working on his 15th year working here at Green River.

Metivier focused on drawing and painting primarily and then moved through photography into what is called printmaking. Before graduating and transferring to California State University, Long Beach in Los Angeles to be a printmaking major, Metivier decided to take a pottery class.

After taking the pottery class, Metivier decided to pause the transfer process to continue his pottery practice.

It was quite a shift from working in 2D to 3D and using different types of materials.

“It connected with me in different ways and one is the calmer side of it. In printmakingm, you can do a drawing on a metal plate and do an addition of 100 prints from that and I like the idea of spending this time on this intricate drawing and then being able to make multiple copies of it and printing it really appealed to me,” Metivier said.

“It appealed to me as much as silkscreen and T-shirts coming up with an idea printing it on a shirt for people to wear appealed to me. So when I got into pottery, there was this thing about being able to make cups, actual objects like the cup could actually have my drawing on it and its something that is utilitarian so it functioned every day and there was something humble about it,” Metivier said.

Metivier was able to apply his knowledge of printmaking and applying to his pottery. “It was something that seemed like there was a lot of opportunities there that all of the skills that I have learned in my 2D experience I could apply to clay. There was a lot of room to explore and that was pretty exciting to me.”

Before Metivier taught at Green River, he had taught at art community centers. He taught clay to children right as soon as he was out of graduate school also taught grade school and middle school students.
Afterward, Metivier started teaching after-school programs, summer camps, and then adult classes at these community art centers.

“It was there that I really began to understand that clay can be just as engaging to a 7 yr old and to the retired engineer who has spent has his life at a drawing table to somebody who has had their career and retired. Watching someone at 65 interacts with clay was not so different than watching the seven year old interact with clay. The material leads to this playfulness,” Metivier said.

Metivier boasted about how his classes are mostly about problem-solving and how his ultimate goal for the class is to learn how to use clay as a creative material.

Students get to experience something that out of the ordinary motions of everyday life. It also creates an atmosphere where everyone feels welcome. 

“When you come into the ceramic studio, I believe that the students can feel a community that is welcoming to people and you get welcomed in.”

“None of us get to this career by ourselves, and I say that because ceramics requires more than one person, like when you look at the ceramic process it often involves with more than one person. In here you not only learn about art but you learn how to work with other people,” Metivier said. 

His pottery classes are offered all year round for students that are interested in pottery.