James Estes ’25 researched the Chinese economy, and the Harvard Business Review published his findings.
January 7, 2025
Ceramics Teacher Becky Soderberg ’94 returns to SPS following a sabbatical in Portugal.
BY JANA F. BROWN
A year abroad offered Becky Soderberg ’94 a fresh perspective plus a slate of new ideas that she’s excited to incorporate into her teaching.
Soderberg spent the 2023-24 academic year living in the small coastal town of Ericeira on the western coast of Portugal, about 40 minutes north of the capital city of Lisbon. There, she and her husband, Nanda (also on the arts faculty at SPS) and their three children (and two dogs and a cat) immersed themselves in the local culture and community. Along the way, Soderberg expanded her ceramics skills, which she’s now integrating into her classes at SPS. Equally important, the experience reinvigorated Soderberg’s approach to the arts through meeting local artists, learning new throwing techniques and seeing firsthand in museums work she’d previously only seen in books.
“I was inspired by all the amazing tile work and the history of tiles in Portugal,” Soderberg says, “all the patterns and designs, and visiting factories and learning about how that worked. I took more than 10,000 photos to remind myself of what I saw. It was all inspiration, whether I was on the street and saw some amazing colors or in a museum and saw something I’d never seen before made out of clay.”
Nanda and Becky Soderberg ‘94 with a local artist in Portugal.
Tilework on display in the streets of Portugal.
In addition to traveling throughout Portugal, Soderberg visited the Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany. It was at a museum in the Netherlands that Soderberg fell in love with Delftware, a type of Dutch-glazed pottery. In one of her SPS classes this fall, her students undertook a project sparked by the blue and white colors that are the signature of Delft pottery. Both Soderberg and her husband also attended the Glass Art Society Conference in Berlin, which brought together artists from more than 40 countries for discussions and networking. In Tuscany, Soderberg took an intensive porcelain course at La Merida, a school at which she had dreamed of studying. There, she learned hand-building techniques with porcelain, including working with colored porcelain slips.
“That’s what I’ve introduced to my advanced class,” Soderberg says, explaining that slip is a liquid casting clay used to add color and depth to a piece. “I’ve been using my inspiration to design new projects for my students whenever I can.”
In their temporary hometown of Ericeira, Soderberg worked with a Portuguese artist named Fernanda who taught unfamiliar throwing approaches and forced Soderberg to adjust to different tools and materials, such as sugar cane, which proved a creative challenge. “It was different,” Soderberg says, “because I didn’t have all the comforts of my St. Paul’s studio with my tools and the clay I was used to. It was about training my mind to do things differently.”
Soderberg also was exposed to traditional ceramics skills, such as Raku firing. She hopes to build a Raku kiln with her SPS students, and to invite the community to participate in an event where onlookers can see the distinct firing and glazing method at work.
In addition to broadening her artistic horizons, Soderberg says her year in Portugal with her family allowed them to experience the local European lifestyle, and note the differences from what they know in the U.S. Although they didn’t speak Portuguese, the family learned the basics and were able to find their way around the neighborhood markets and businesses. Soderberg adds that she found value in being an outsider, in putting herself in uncomfortable situations, and learning how to adapt.
“I’m grateful that the School gave us this opportunity to step away for a year to reaffirm our love for the arts,” she says. “It’s given me that reset to make me think differently about my approach to art, and it allowed me to come back and reassess what I want to be doing in class. I saw so much that I’m trying to … pass along to my students.”
