Watching his mother take a pottery class had a lasting impact on Shishir Chokshi.
“My mom came and did this afternoon clay thing, and I never forgot it. I was in second grade I was 7 years old,” said Chokshi, whose experience with the medium led him to open Tire City Potters more than 20 years ago.
Art was in the background of Chokshi’s early years. The son of a skilled painter and mechanical engineer, he enjoyed buildings things from an artistic vantage point. Instead of playing in the water at the beach as a child, he was more interested in creating big sandcastles.
His mother fed his interest in the arts. The family moved around where his father’s job took them. At one point, his father worked in Saudi Arabia, and the company provided all-expenses paid vacations during the summer. His mother took them to various museums in Europe, where he saw all of the paintings by the great masters. He also traveled to Egypt.
“We saw all of the monuments. Egypt was a remarkable place with all these massive structures. I loved it,” he said.
In high school, he volunteered to make his friend’s clay projects simply because he enjoyed immersing himself in the process, but he never saw it as a career.
His road to an art career wasn’t a straight path. His parents, who immigrated to the United States from India wanted him to find a path that led to a high-dollar career. He first started in a pre-pharmacy program at the University of Georgia because an uncle owned several pharmacies and wanted someone in the family to run them.
“I hated the book work and having to memorize all these formulas,” he said.
What was the point of knowing that when he was dispensing drugs, not manufacturing them? he said.
After more than a year, he was done with UGA and started at Augusta University with his sights on computer science. Taking a pottery class for non-art majors opened a door he could never close.
He didn’t stop with that single class though. He kept taking pottery, and his adviser could see that’s where his heart and talent was.
After convincing his parents this was the right path, Chokshi changed his major.
“I went from almost no GPA to 4.0 GPA,” he said.
Since 2001, Chokshi has shared his love of clay at Tire City Potters, 210B Tenth St., home of the giant Happy mural.
Classes range depending on skill and interest. Some of the more introductory classes are the forever Christmas trees and forever pumpkins, where people can take a clay base and design it to their holiday-themed vibe.
One word of caution. These are not ”make-it and take-it” classes. When creating out of clay, there are several processes involved to get to the finished product. Clay goes through additional processes not limited to being fired in a kiln, and that can take a couple of weeks until it’s completed.
Forever pumpkin classes begin in August. If people sign up, they will have to return at a later date and get their pieces, he said. He has a row of orphaned pumpkins and trees that he wonders what happened to their makers. Was it a first date gone wrong?
Tire City also offers a mug workshop designing a mug, planter or bowl.
There’s also the throwing experience of taking a piece of clay and fashioning it on a pottery wheel, and that adds a degree of difficulty.
And for people with some skill, they can opt for a private lesson to make what’s in their creative brain, but if someone is thinking of sculpting a replica of David, Chokshi warns he’s no Michelangelo, so the person needs to come to the session with that skillset.
While there are set times for classes, Chokshi said they can work to accommodate groups of six or more.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
