Origin of Pottermom

Gingerbread House Studios, circa 1957

Someone asked me why the name Pottermom. It's rooted in the generational art handed down from my mother, Margaret Leister. I grew up in a home that revolved around a pottery studio named the Gingerbread House in Trappe, Pennsylvania. Each day my mother would retreat to her clays and glazes while I sat on a stool and had free rein over every other manner of art supplies.

I never learned to throw pottery (the term for creating on a wheel), though, despite the availability. She kept that for herself. So, as an adult, I decided it was a skill I wanted to explore and spent three years working in the studios of the Toledo Museum of Art. The process clicked and I replicated Pennsylvania Dutch folk patterns from my mother in honor of her legacy. Setting up a small studio for myself is an unfulfilled bucket list item, but learning her craft, experiencing the personal centering she must have felt as she created beautiful things from a lump of clay have all made a profound difference in my life.

From this has come "Pottermom." She didn't live to share this as she passed away unexpectedly in 1984, but I am sure she knows.

PA Dutch Folk patterns, MLeister, circa 2003

Distilfink pattern, MLeister, circa 2003