Linda Wright of Big Hill Pottery throwing pottery for the second time in several weeks, and only the second time throwing pottery standing up. Linda just returned to her studio following back surgery in late August. Back surgery has forced her to rethink her throwing posture, and led to the addition of new textured products in her pottery collection.

By Carolyn Barber, The Victoria Standard

Linda Wright threw her first piece of pottery in weeks on Oct. 10, albeit under the watchful eye of an occupational therapist. The 66-year old ceramicist is reinventing herself in the studio following a career-threatening health scare and is encouraging other ceramicists to mind their backs.

Around this time last year, Linda headed in for knee replacement surgery. The timing was good. She would simply recoup from surgery while her studio, Big Hill Pottery, just east of Baddeck, was closed in the off-season. Surgery and rehab went as planned and, one day in April, she returned to the studio and her beloved pottery wheel.

That same night she could hardly move.

What began as back pain and electric shocks down her legs progressed into much more over the next four months - numbness, weakness, pins and needles and ultimately losing her balance. She was already familiar with sciatica and knew it was much more than that.

“I've never been so scared,” she said on Oct. 11 at her studio.

After months of treating the issue with heat, rest and anti-inflammatories, an MRI finally revealed Linda had a severe stenosis in her spine. Spinal stenosis is a compression of the spinal canal, in Linda’s case, caused by bone spurs on the vertebrae.

“My whole spinal cord was being impinged and so, slowly, it would have just, it would have, in fact, paralyzed me.”

On Aug. 23, Linda had surgery to open up the spinal column. Seven weeks later she was once again back in the studio.

The surgeon said the stenosis had likely been there for years, getting worse and worse even though she had no symptoms. He attributed her condition to age-induced osteoarthritis, though Linda’s stenosis was unusual in its location – the thoracic region or mid-back. Spinal stenosis most often shows up in the lower lumbar region or lower back.

In retrospect, this came as no surprise to Linda, considering her throwing posture for 25 years. Like most ceramicists, Linda has thrown pottery bending 45 degrees forward over a pottery wheel - often also leaning 45 degrees to the right - putting cumulative pressure on her mid-back. She believes recovering from knee surgery last winter meant that she returned to the pottery wheel in April without the usual core muscle strength that had been masking the stenosis.

For Linda, the setback was just that, a setback. She has now literally and figuratively pivoted from the experience.

Raising her pottery wheel allows her to throw pottery standing up instead of bending her whole body over the wheel. To cope with the mounting boredom and depression awaiting back surgery, she began revisiting pottery techniques she loves, but has not practiced in over 20 years.

“What I’m finding exciting is that it’s forced me to say ‘OK, I've got to stop just coming in here thinking I'm going to do 60 mugs, because I've been doing this for 30 years and I'm used to it.’”

“I'm trying to get more balance. Metaphorically, I think that's what this whole thing with my back is telling me. I lost my whole physical balance and I couldn't walk properly because of the stenosis. I'm taking it on that level, as well as just trying to pay attention to the fact that, you know, I'm not 50 years old, or 40 years old, I'm much older, and the body changes. We all face it.”

In this spirit, Linda will be balancing her collection’s sell-out mugs, cups and wine goblets with hand-built platters and vases inlaid with textures from handmade stamps, rollers and molds.

Left: Linda adding texture to a platter using hand-made stamps and rollers. Right: Platter, and vase in-laid with texture.

To learn more about Linda and her work, visit http://www.bighillretreat.com/potteryabout.html.