Carrie Gustafson loves children. As a child she would create her own with paper and scissors; cutting paper dolls that were twins, then triplets, then quadruplets. Now she’s counting each day until she will be gathering weekly groups of children, ages 6-16, to let them play with clay.

Gustafson’s summer clay camps date back to 1994, through many years on Sunset Hill and then a hiatus since 2009 while she has been living closer to family in Bremerton. This summer, the clay camps that have introduced hundreds, if not thousands of kids to working with clay will return at Sunset Hill Community Association. “The hard part now is waiting to get there and see the kids,” Carrie told me. “I can’t wait.”

Although I’ve known Carrie for almost ten years, and written about her legendary solstice parties with Regnor Reinholdsten, I’ve never interviewed her before. To my chagrin Carrie made a special trip from Bremerton just to sit down with me, and didn’t have anything more than a glass of water before she set off on the return trip in order to pick up her granddaughter Ruby.

Carrie grew up a Jensen in Ballard, along with two sisters and three brothers. They went to Webster School, James Monroe and Ballard High School. Her parents moved to the eastside after Carrie’s graduation but she and a sister weren’t about to leave Ballard. They got an apartment where Lund Electric is now. Carless they’d walk to the A & P and buy too many things to carry. Their bags would break and when their groceries rolled in the street they would laugh so hard they couldn’t walk. The house where she was raised is still standing and it seems that no matter what Carrie always ends up back on NW 28th.

At nineteen Carrie married Carl Gustafson, a local boy and fisherman, and proceeded to raise her own family in Ballard. Getting memories out of Carrie isn’t easy because the only stories from the past she really loves to share involve students in her clay camps. “Clay is a vessel in so many ways,” she told me.
“Sometimes I start to cry because when I see how these kids bloom in just a week…” Sure enough her big blue eyes began to fill with tears, but the look on her face was more enraptured.

“You know how kids are the first day of kindergarten, kind of shy? Fifteen minutes after they’ve been at clay camp things are just already swinging.” From my daughter’s many years of experience, I know the four day progression quite well. On Mondays and Tuesdays the kids are absolutely immersed in clay, learning how to prepare it, hand-build, work on the wheel, start over when something doesn’t work. Wednesday has a different rhythm, literally and figuratively. Since the ceramics need to dry and be fired, Carrie encourages all the kids who play an instrument to bring it along for jam sessions.

“I had these sisters years ago who didn’t play instruments but did ballet. We threw open the doors and they just danced in their tutus to Tchaikovsky. I’ve never forgotten that.” Carrie also recalled a boy who organized a drumming circle using wood tools on turned-over buckets and a mother who commented that her son would never play the piano at home, just for Carrie.

Because even slightly hyperactive Carrie cannot be everywhere at once she loves lunchtime with the campers. “We all just sit and yak. I ask about their pets. I get to see what other things are going on in their life. And all week I tell them, ‘the bell’s not going to ring. If that doesn’t work out, we’ll try something else.’ Kids need time. Especially in the summer, they need time.”

Trying to regain control of the interview portion I asked Carrie about her lifelong involvement with art. As a young mother she started making an annual collection for Frederick & Nelson stores, known as Carrie Ornaments. However Carrie wanted to work in another media and began researching glazes for ceramics. She says of 1988, “That was when my journey with clay really began.”

The creative journeys of many children begin at the clay camps, usually when a child gets to work on the wheel, first learning how to center and then feeling the cylinder rise up between their small fingers.
Just as in the very beginning Carrie’s daughter Holly Gold will be helping out this summer. Over the years as students matured they became helpers, with the little ones always worshipping the older helpers, and the teenagers delighted by the younger ones. As per tradition, Thursday, the final day of each four-day camp, will include the glazing technique known as Raiku in which the pottery is fed into the flames.

“I can’t wait,” Carrie said again, looking past me to the street as though students might be arriving. I looked over my shoulder. “It’s magic,” she said. “Every Thursday I go home and have to smile constantly as I think back on that week.” She sighed and smiled, but it wasn’t my face she was seeing at all. It’s the happy faces of children that feed her soul.

Information is available at www.lilyandthepeople.com or by calling 360.782.5450. Camps (8 sessions) begin the week of July 2nd; run from 10-2 Monday-Thursday and are $200/week ($190 if registered by June 1). Registration forms also available on SHCA clubhouse door, 3003 NW 66th St.