Craig Britton and Brittany Whitaker Keeping Life Simple While Making Starkly Beautiful Red Pottery with Floral Glaze Decorations
CNL2 VIDEO AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE
Craig Britton and Brittany Whitaker operate a pottery and fused glass studio on San Juan Island named Living Large Small. The studio name is a tip of the hat to minimalism — mindfulness of the human footprint.
After many occupations, Craig found his passion for pottery.
“It’s more of a passion thing, something I’ve always wanted to do,” he told CNL2. “When I finally did get my hands in clay, it really spoke to me. It was just something that I always wanted to try.”
Craig now teaches pottery to beginners at Alchemy Art Center.
But after the first firing, Craig hands off the pots to “Britt” for decorative glazes.
“It’s taken a while to consider myself an artist,” she said. “I’ve always painted and drawn while growing up, always thinking of it as a hobby. It’s just in the last few years, as we sell our work, that a lightbulb went on. I am an artist.”
Craig and Brittany also share a passion for fused glass. He works in bowls; she makes jewelry. Fused glass is also known as “cold working,” which means cutting and scoring glass at room temp, and fusing the pieces together in a kiln.
Her style in jewelry is to overlap dichroic glass, which displays shifting colors depending on lighting conditions. Brittany has loved drawing flowers her whole life, and that theme continues in her pottery decoration. Craig throws pots made of red clay, which gives the pots a distinctively desert Southwest feel. She drives it home with bold floral glaze work.
Craig and Britt met 10 years ago in Boston — and seven years ago went on the road for a road trip that morphed into a multi-year existence in the intimate space of a Dodge Sprinter camping van. They named it “Van Morrison.” Their life in the van appealed to their sense of minimalism.
“We don’t need a lot of things to be happy,” she said.
Britany said, “I was the kid that would carefully unwrap their Christmas presents not to waste the wrapping paper. That’s how deep it goes for me. Always very conscious of your impact [of] consumption.” She said traveling the country without a schedule was something both of them individually had dreamed of doing. They often didn’t know the next place they wanted to be until they arrived.
Early in the long journey, they visited Craig’s uncle here on San Juan Island. After that, every location visited for the rest of the trip was compared to San Juan Island. The San Juans eventually won, but Britt said the desert Southwest was a close second.
Their work can be seen this summer in the Artist Village at Roche Harbor. And they exhibit at the Farmers Market, as well.
This year’s June 1st & 2nd Studio Tour will be Living Large Small’s third. This year, they will be guests at Glenn Hendrick‘s studio, which is number 23 on the tour.
This CNL2 video is approximately 28 minutes in duration.