Gloria Pottery's Beginning
At a young age, my grandmother, Gloria Knapp, taught me the love of art. She taught me how to paint roses when I was 4, and showed me how she painted beautiful work on porcelain and loaded it into the kiln. She took me on trips to her small ceramics shop on the Bayou in Louisiana, where each of her pieces were signed "Gloria" elegantly on the bottom. Over my lifetime I saw her deepen in her love of Jesus and lean on Him through a variety of illnesses and struggles. I always felt a special connection with her and knew that my passion for art was inherited from her.
When I went to college I started out my studies in art painting and drawing, but stumbled into the pottery studio simply because I needed to fill more college credits. I had no idea how I would fall in love with this challenging medium. When I graduated, I dreamed of one day owning my own studio, but thought it was far distant in the future. Fast-forward a few years, I started day-dreaming of opening up a pottery even to the point of planning out the whole business. I didn't have the means to make it happen though, and I simply kept the plans hidden away. During this time I had a huge conversion of faith and drastically changed my life to follow Christ. I fell in love with the Latin Mass and deep traditions of the faith. I was desperately looking for a way that I could dedicate my "talents" to Him in a sustainable way and glorify Him.
On Divine Mercy Sunday of 2024, my grandmother passed away suddenly. The shock and grief of her untimely death was so difficult to process. But she left me with not only the passion for art she instilled in me, but also the means to glorify God with it. I inherited from her literally everything I needed to start a pottery. The name of the pottery was predestined. On the bottom of each piece, I sign the name "Gloria," just like the pieces from my childhood on the Louisiana Bayou, and feel overwhelmed with love for her and continuing her work, as well as the blessing and opportunity to bring glory to God in an unending task of homaging Him as co-creator in this wonderful mission. Gloria in excelsis Deo! Ad majorem Dei gloriam!