Ceramics whiz has become an internet sensation

Teagan Koble's story has so many interesting places to start, but the most fascinating point may be where she's going to end up.

Three years ago, as a Garrett High School junior with blossoming skills for drawing and painting, Koble decided while sitting at a wheel to form a small bowl that she wanted to try ceramics.

"Afterward, I didn't want to do anything else," Koble said. "Now, I literally just make pottery all day, every day."

In fact, Koble loves staying late and coming in early to either Purdue University Fort Wayne's ceramics studio in the College of Visual and Performing Arts or the Community Learning Center in Kendallville, where she's co-manager of the ceramics studio. Koble said she is so thankful for the opportunity every time she walks into a studio.

She chose PFW because of its outstanding ceramics program, led by Seth Green, associate professor of ceramics, who has won numerous national awards and has guided some of his students to achieve the same success. A sophomore, Koble plans on attending graduate school and is considering becoming a professor like Green.

She's already comfortable speaking to an audience and explaining her techniques, something she started doing with her painting and drawing in 2022 on her Instagram page. Her business is named Teagan Alexandra Art. The Instagram page was not meant to serve as advertising, but for Koble to document her passion and to explain to friends why she wasn't spending as much time with them.

Last March, Koble posted a video describing her attempt to decorate a cake vessel. Koble's first job at 16 in the bakery of a Garrett grocery store included learning to decorate cakes, and now she was attempting to transfer that skill to her pottery.

In the video, Koble tries to explain her challenges affixing the icing-like decorations before the ceramic cake goes into the kiln. As she says, the video became much more, blowing past 1.4 million views.

"I was like, `Oh, my goodness, where did this come from,'" Koble said. "It seemed like it was not real, especially because I'd never really thought about my social media before. I just thought this was crazy, and then people were giving me so many compliments.

"I've seen people do this in ceramic monthly magazines from the 1980s, so this is nothing new, but it's very much not typical," Koble said. "So, when people see it, they're like, `Oh, my gosh, I've never seen anything like this.' A lot of people seemed to want to try this themselves, too."

Another of her videos topped 1 million views, giving her four videos with more than 100,000 views. There are 17,000 subscribers to her Instagram page, and most posts average 20,000 views. Koble has a comfortable style to understand and follow.

"She is just a special person, and we are lucky to have her," said Molly Papier, director of the Community Arts Academy. "She is a walking advertisement for this department. I couldn't have anybody more amazing to promote what we're doing."

The greatest thing, Koble said, are not the compliments and the attention, but the encouragement, which helped her find an early specialized niche: ceramic cake decorating. Often topped with a strawberry, a cherry, or a few blueberries, the cake containers are about the size of a softball, though they can be larger, and seem most useful as places to hold pens, keys, and other knick-knacks. They look good enough to eat.

"I know some people would say she's a natural, but I think she's had a lot of practice," Green said. "She is talented, but she's also a really hard worker, and I think those two traits combined are what's going to help her become really successful. She's got a lot of promise, a lot of talent, but she's also got a lot of work ethic to back it up and propel her to where she can really excel in ceramics."

For Koble, the cakes are a chance to explore her creativity and establish a bit of a brand. She works on 20 to 25 pottery pieces daily, including cups, planters and jewelry. Between classes and her job in Kendallville's Community Learning Center, cakes can take up to a month to finish.

The best part of attending PFW?

"It's really great to have people around who are continually pushing me," Koble said. "I've made great friends who are just as inspired by pottery as I am, and it's so much fun to see what each other is making. It's really been a great place for me."