Becki Dahlstedt of Mountain View
Potter builds a life and business in Mountain View
In a matter of minutes, Becki Dahlstedt had pressed, squeezed and pulled a ball of clay on her potter’s wheel into a shape that might be transformed into a pot, bowl or vase. “My first passion was drawing,” she said in her Mountain View home studio. “I drew things I saw — people, trees, flowers. I didn’t come to pottery until later in life, but it is my passion.”
She and her husband, David, are the owners of Mountain View Pottery. Becki also serves on the board of directors of the Arkansas Craft Guild and is the volunteer manager of the Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery. Her work outside her home studio leaves her little time for pottery, but Becki said she sees the trade-off as worthwhile.
The Missouri native has lived in Mountain View for 26 years. She said art is vital to the community.
“It’s essential,” she said. “Mountain View is a tourist town, and arts, crafts and music are the reasons why. Studies show that cultural tourists tend to stay longer and spend more money. They like things that are made locally, and that is what David and I make and market.”
Born in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Becki grew up in the
“Everybody has a favorite mug. If they break one, they’ll ask me to make another one just like it, but by then I’ll have made a thousand mugs, and I won’t remember how!”
rural community of Gordonville, Mo.
“My parents, my grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins all lived on property that was adjacent to my grandfather’s sawmill,” she said. “I went to a one-room
BECKI DAHLSTEDT
co-owner of Mountain View Pottery
country schoolhouse. It was the same school my dad had gone to. It had a pot-bellied stove, and we had to go out to
the outhouse.”
She later attended school with her cousins in nearby Bell City.
“One thing I remember about that school was that it let out early for ‘cotton pickers’ vacation,’ because there were so many migrant families in that area,” she said.
When she was in the fourth grade, she and her family moved back to Cape Girardeau, where she graduated from high school and majored in art, English and French at Southeastern Missouri State University.
“It was a unique town,” Becki said of Cape Girardeau. “It had a lot of old architecture, which I like. I like evidence of life in something old.”
She was always the artist in her family.
“I was encouraged to draw. The first thing I remember drawing was the Sunday comics,” she said. “My grandmother thought I had traced them, but then she saw my drawings weren’t the same size as what was in the paper. I took art classes, and I had a good art teacher in high school. Everything I do now is really an extension of that initial interest in art.”
After college, Becki began a career in professional management, going to work for a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. It wasn’t until she moved to Berkeley, Calif., that she discovered her interest in pottery. She took her first pottery lessons at a community studio there.
“I knew nothing about making it,” she said. “I majored in art in college, but I’d never taken a pottery class. Once I saw and learned how clay works, I got into all the rest of it.”
She eventually moved back to Missouri and, while living in St. Louis, made an acquaintance who recommended that she check out Mountain View.
“He said there were all kinds of artists and musicians there,” she said. On a visit to the Ozark Folk Center, she met David, a crafts interpreter. They married in 1985, and while working together at the Folk Center, began developing the stoneware pottery around which they have built their business.
She said she considered the artistic side of her life a luxury.
“It was more than a hobby because I was passionate about it, but it was never something I thought I could make a career of. When I came to Mountain View, I realized that I could be a full-time potter. So many people here make their living doing their art,” she said.
In 1990, the Dahlstedts received an Individual Artist’s Fellowship grant through the Arkansas Arts Council and began building a studio onto their home. They began working exclusively out of their home studio six years later. David designed most of the equipment, including the kick wheel and gas-fired kiln.
Becki said she and David each contribute their individual talents to the business.
“David’s expertise is creating pottery,” she said. “He’s good at the clay and the equipment. He couldn’t care less about business, so I take care of the accounts.”
Becki said she got involved early with the Arkansas Craft Guild, which is now celebrating its 50th year.
“I’m drawn to the organizational and administrative stuff,” she said, “and I was elected to the Guild Board.”
She remains active in the Guild, which she said remains a strong network for artists. She said that during a declining period, the Guild had to scale back some of its shops and shows, “but we continued the gallery, and we’ve worked with the city and [Mountain View Area] Chamber of Commerce to re-establish crafts as a viable part of [Mountain View].”
Part of her responsibilities as volunteer gallery manager is recruiting others to work in the gallery or in other capacities for the Guild.
“That’s very easy,” she said of finding people to work in the shop. “It’s fun being in the gallery; you meet a lot of great people.”
Becki said she does still find time to create pottery — or at least do the glazing — when she isn’t busy running the gallery or doing the marketing for her business.
“When I sit down with the clay, it’s so tangible,” she said. “The shape takes place so fast. You are seeing something that didn’t exist before take shape before your eyes. I can still be amazed by that.”
She also enjoys glazing and decorating pots.
“I can do the basic forming of a pot in about 15 minutes,” she said. “The next day, I’ll do the trimming or assemble the pieces for a teapot or whatever it is I’m making. I’ll let the piece dry for a week, then do the bisque firing — that’s a slow process, to make sure nothing blows up! If it’s not properly dried, steam forms, expands and explodes. That can be fun. Then I’ll do all the glazing.”
She then glazes enough pots to fill up and fire the kiln.
“I make small pots,” Becki said. “People like them. I love the fact that people use our stoneware daily. I’ll hear someone say, ‘I use your mug every morning,’ and that’s amazing. Everybody has a favorite mug. If they break one, they’ll ask me to make another one just like it, but by then I’ll have made a thousand mugs, and I won’t remember how!”
Unless they get a special order, she and David “don’t make every piece the same.”
Though the process of making pottery might seem repetitive, “the fact is, I can only make one at a time. If I’m making three dozen mugs, I’m still making them one at a time,” Becki said.
She loves getting time to create pottery and said she and David are fortunate to be able to work at home.
Their business has benefited from the creative atmosphere in Mountain View, which Becki and David help foster.
“The Folk Center is an advantage,” Becki said. “We just came through a rough time in the economy — not so big of a slump here, but it did affect the arts elsewhere.”
Though business overall has “decreased somewhat,” Becki said, “we’ve weathered it. We didn’t have so far to fall. Overall, we’ve survived pretty well, and we’re still in business, and the Guild is still here.”
She said that by focusing on local music and traditions, the Guild helped strengthen the local economy.
“It is still carrying out its mission of training and education,” Becki said.
Staff writer Daniel A. Marsh can be reached at (501) 399-3688 or dmarsh@arkansasonline.com.