Richard Spencer
Special to the Sun
In 1962, Beverly Prevost loaded all her belongings into her ’58 Chevy station wagon and headed to the Bay Area to live among other potters. The day before, she had received an MFA at the University of Georgia, the only potter in the master’s program. Back then, she said, the only outlet for a potter’s work in Georgia was a roadside stand.
On a recent afternoon, Prevost talked about her life and work in a relaxed conversation in the garden of the La Haye Art Center on East Napa Street, where she and four other artists have studios and sell their work in the Hallway Gallery.
As a committed potter—the term she favors because it goes well with her name—Prevost never let not having a studio stop her from working. Living in San Rafael, she took classes at the College of Marin so she could use the studio and fire her work there. For a long time, she worked on her kitchen counter. And to help support herself, she’s done “lots of teaching” over the years, including in the Dixie School District in Marin, and, currently, at the Sonoma Community Center.
She moved to Sonoma in 1970, opening her studio, Pepperwood Pottery, five years later on Broadway, across from the high school. Prevost moved to her current studio at La Haye in 1981.
Her functional porcelain—plates, bowls, trays, vases that cost from $20 to $500—is a counterpoint to the high-tech gadgets in our lives. “There’s something wonderful about a piece made by hand,” Prevost said, adding that she puts a “wiggle” on the rim of every piece to show it’s handmade. Describing her work, she quotes a lyric from a country and western song: “It was born at the junction of form and function.”
As a potter, Prevost says form is most important to her and she’s less interested in decoration. Her popular porcelain creamers and sugar bowls are examples—they sport human derrieres formed on their exteriors. Because she’s seen her work grow and improve, which has been a long, slow process, she considers herself an artist. Part of it “is knowing when to quit, to not strangle the work with angst.”
One of her specialties is dinnerware that restaurateurs and caterers particularly like. The unique black glaze—not gloss, not matte, with different levels of color—that she applies to almost-square plates creates a complementary backdrop for food.
She’s made custom place settings for her neighbor, Cafe La Haye, as well as for Sushi Ran in Sausalito, Restaurant Elizabeth David in San Francisco (which was opened by the same people who ran Babette’s in Sonoma in the late 1990s) and the Gundlach Bundschu Winery, among others. “The stark austerity of the black plates shows off our food beautifully,” explained Cafe La Haye owner Saul Gropman, who considers them as much an artistic expression as the paintings on the restaurant’s walls.
Prevost’s neck and back bear the effects of years of lifting and sitting at the potter’s wheel, tasks that are essential to her artistry. When she wants to be free of her wheel, she creates hand-built vessels, which are a favorite because “they’re not round and they hold a mystery.”
In 1998, the Sonoma Cultural and Fine Arts Commission named her that year’s Artist Treasure, which besides honor got her a ride in the Fourth of July parade. In November, she’ll show her work in the juried Master and Apprentice Annual Exhibition of the Baulines Craft Guild in San Rafael. Prevost also sells her pottery at the Museum of Craft+Design in San Francisco and at galleries.
As an artist, she supports her Sonoma Valley peers, and was a founding member of the Arts Guild of Sonoma. Prevost believes the community should support them, too. “It’s not just food and wine here.”
Prevost Pottery
La Haye Art Center
148 East Napa Street
Sonoma
www.beverlyprevostpottery.com
Monday through Saturday
Hours: Best to call first
707 996-9665
