In my senior high school yearbook, all students were asked to list clubs, sports, awards, etc., and to state what might be accomplished after graduation. We got all sorts of ambitious comments like skateboard to the moon and back; lay rubber down Front Street in my Falcon station wagon; eat 40 ZAGNUT candy bars while painting the principal’s pickup purple! You know, the usual. But then there were some of my more reasonable classmates who planned on going to college, enlisting in the Army (it was Vietnam time), traveling, mining, becoming a doctor or an engineer or starting a trucking business.

I always admired those who were so definite about what they wanted to do, many of whom, years later, had indeed accomplished their stated goals. Planning my future was never a very clear matter for me. I didn’t give it much thought and had no burning desire to be or do anything in particular. I think what I wrote in the yearbook was to make my parents proud of me. It was sort of a default ambition. I don’t regret that intention, but I was not overcome with a clear future vision.

I went to college, and darned near flunked out which made me “1A” draft material – summer school got me to academic probation and the opportunity to return to screw up some more the following year.

Annie Bucholtz, this week’s gracious talent, knew from a very early age that art was all she ever wanted to do. Growing up in Georgia, Annie was surrounded by artistic people, in her family and in her life. At age 5, she learned to knit and family members regularly gathered for knitting moments. It may have been the source of Annie’s eye-hand coordination which ultimately led to her special gift – pottery.

Annie’s family moved to New England when she was 6 years old where she graduated from high school and went on to study ceramics at Mass Art. Summers she attended Penland School of Crafts in Asheville, North Carolina, then interned at Harvard followed by starting her own business in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. At the same time she started a dog walking enterprise in the Back Bay Area of Boston, and became a certified dog trainer in 2021. Here in Maine she still works with clients and their dogs from the Boston area.

While we visited at one of her day jobs at Alison Evans Ceramics production facility in East Boothbay, Annie casually plopped a lump of clay onto a vacant wheel and began to create a flower pot. As it rose up from the wheel, opening gracefully to a more suitable shape, we chatted and she spoke lovingly to a couple of canines in her charge. I have trouble chewing gum and walking at the same time. Annie talked with me, turned a pot, spoke to the dogs and checked messages on her phone. It was almost as if she could have taken a nap and still completed all her tasks.

In her spare time, Annie works at the Southport Art Barn as a manager and creative director with her good friend Emma Gay. Together they organize and teach workshops like knitting, candle making, watercolor also organizing “art talks” with area artists, which are open to the public. Never a dull moment for this young lady. When things get rolling this spring, pop in, say hi and enjoy the adventure. Annie knows her stuff and is quite happy to share.