A Nova Scotia artist is bringing veterans into her pottery studio to connect them with their own creativity and help them redefine their lives after making the often-difficult transition out of military service.
Lynette Peters welcomes them to her East Lawrencetown studio, Cerberus Pottery, to show them how to mold clay into something new, using decommissioned helmets as a jumping off point for their creations.
“I have such a love and respect…for veterans and what they’ve done for us,” explains Peters.
Her husband, Colin, served in Afghanistan, and the family’s life and milestones were often punctuated by his deployments.
After he was released from service, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world. Her regular ceramics classes halted, and so Peters decided to use the space to help other retired members of the military.
She already had some old helmets on hand and The Cerberus Helmet Project was launched.
“The helmets are a cradle for something different,” she explains, “and I think that objects aren’t just to be identified as in the one position in the continuum of time…they are so much more, and they can have so many purposes and so many different things that they can fulfill within their lifetime.”
“And when people leave their roles in service, they are tasked with an identity shift,” Peters continues, “and one of the most beautiful ways is to include that military identity and reform it into a new one.”
Her husband made one of the first pieces. Then Peters started inviting other veterans into her studio for one-on-one instruction and guidance free of charge.
“It’s just that space to be.”
Retired military helicopter pilot Ilona Inman met Peters during an entrepreneurship event for veterans and accepted the invitation.
“It’s very interesting to see when I was working one-on-one with her when she was teaching, it was very interesting to see all of the different little things that she could pick up on,” recalls Inman.
For one thing, Inman says, Peters noticed how she seemed to take to sitting at the pottery wheel easily, which Inman describes as very much like sitting at the controls of a helicopter.
“And I think that’s very much a gift that she has to recognize someone’s experience and bring it into whatever she’s working on,” Inman adds.
She says she always considered herself a creative person but being in the military meant little spare time to pursue those interests.
Once she left the forces, she found one outlet for that creativity at Cerberus Pottery.
“It’s just that space to allow ourselves to be with people that we’re comfortable with, but not for the purpose of official therapy or of speaking about the military,” she explains. “It’s just that space to be and I think that is very important.”
Every veteran participating in the project makes something different. Inman crafted a ceramic dish with two bowls that sit on top. She used an aviation helmet to mold an indent into the dish.
“I chose not to make the piece shaped like the helmet that I was modelling …because I wanted it to be something that was representative in an abstract sense, that wouldn’t necessarily remind me of my time in the military because I’m not there anymore,” she says, “I’ve moved forward into a different world.”
Navy veteran Chris Hamilton, on the other hand, chose to create a large glazed green bowl that looks very much like a helmet.
To create the piece, Peters showed Hamilton how to roll out clay into a sheet using a large press. He then laid it over a helmet to mold the correct shape.
“One of my goals when I retired was just to do things with my hands and just be creative in some kind of way,” he says.
“And then, you know, seeing the things around the studio here just brings back a lot of memories from my service and what this whole project kind of brings home for me,” he adds.
Hamilton spent three decades in the Navy as a sonar operator, a career that included deployments to the Middle East.
“My biggest memory is sailing with a guy and him finding out we were on watch when he found out his brother had been killed in Afghanistan. And so that was pretty emotional,” he says.
Hamilton found working in the studio healing.
“It seems weird but…as you’re rolling it out…your memories are kind of going into it. It’s like a release as well because you feel the emotions but you’re okay with them,” he explains.
Since she started, Peters has worked with more than two dozen project participants.
She wants to inspire others to see veterans differently.
“How can we include veterans?” she asks, “How can we use our own skill sets to include them and invite them along and help them feel like they belong with us?”
“I think it’s our civic duty to do that,” she says.
Comments