Local potter shares work at Aspen Hive on Saturday
Special to The Aspen Times
Courtesy photo
Hands-on hardly begins to describe Rocky Path’s Diane Wuslich’s approach to life.
A mostly-retired sales and marketing master of the Northeastern metro seaboard, she finally decompressed, traveling the world, and eventually pursued her secret passion for a more decadent and savory delicacy of cheese.
A self-claimed woman of extremes, she started studying and cultivating goat herd management and cheese-making, which led her to a goat farm in Paonia, Colorado, and eventually, Aspen.
She embraced the entire cheese-making process from mucking pens and stalls to milking and even birthing nearly 200 “kids.” Her skills lie in marketing, math, fashion, design, and travel, but she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty. She’s multicultural and “caseicultural.”
After settling in Aspen, she wanted to expand her horizons and learn far beyond the fromage de chèvre. She landed at Whole Foods in Willits Town Center, enjoying her cheesemonger status, when COVID-19 landed in the valley.
The pandemic inspired her to revisit her passion for pottery. She opted to safely social distance and hunker down at home, getting her hands back behind the wheel.
Her father should be proud, as he often reminded her over the years how she was recognized as top of her class in pottery in high school before she went off into the corporate “big time.”
“Life in general is always a path. You never know where the path is going to take you. It could be smooth, and it could be rocky, and often, the past is rocky,” she said over shared almonds and olives in front of a roaring fire at the St. Regis, aprés ski. The types of dishes in which these snacks were served are one of her inspirations for her craft.
She started making cheese boards and condiment pieces, which morphed into clusters for offering a trifecta of nibblers such as nuts, cornichons, dried fruit, etc.
Her specialties are entertainment dishes – not only for snacks but condiments that accompany larger meals, as well. This may include chutneys, salsas, tapenades, and even spreadable cheeses.
Rolled out on a serving platter and glazed into two sides of the platter, she left a rocky path unglazed, and it fell into place so organically that she retained the platters with the rocky path down the middle, hence her company, Rocky Path.
She obtains her clay from the Carbondale Clay Center and works with anything from stark white or porcelain to dark brown clays and anything within that earthly spectrum. Her products are extremely durable – fired in bisque kilns at 2,200 degrees – and then glazed and become glass, suitable for presentation, slicing, scooping, dipping, and effortless cleaning.
The artist is not about the “plastic fantastic.” Her approach to everything is refreshingly natural. Having been immersed in the cheese world, she said “cheese is real food. Real, artisan cheese only has four ingredients, and it’s all good for you.”
Not dissimilar from pottery, she works with real clay – a material from the earth, in its rawest form, unadulterated by artificial materials or manufacturing. Diane is elegant and humble in her disposition, much like her delicate manner of sculpting her interests, be it the shape of a condiment cluster, a Boucheron, or even her athletic physique. She’s dedicated to hiking throughout Aspen with her German Shorthaired Pointer, Mika.
Diane is assertive and determined, always seeking opportunities to help other people in her life strive and pursue their passions, despite the rocky roads they may encounter. She takes raw material and massages it into beauty with inspiration coming from her other passions of science, structure, form, but also frivolity.
Featured for display and purchase will be 8-10 rare pieces of her clusters, service platters, and signature snowflake bowls from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, at the Aspen Hive in downtown Aspen, which is owned and operated by Cynthia Jankowski, an entrepreneur and forever supporter of national female artisans and designers of unique and distinctive jewelry and accessories.
“I feel so fortunate,” Diane said,” because there are so few occasions or locations for us to sell our creations in Aspen, and there are a lot of talented people in this valley, and Cynthia is providing another venue for them to feature their art and passions.”
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