Joel Park is a man of diverse talents — from his day job as a maintenance engineer to his work with glass (making exquisite lampwork glass beads) to his ability to sing opera beautifully.

But clay is his passion. For the past 11 years, Park's ceramic work has been in juried shows and he's won awards. His latest exhibit, "out of the fire," is a sumptuous feast of form and glaze work.

Q. What made you interested in clay?

A. A friend, but it was really that first touch of porcelain that was seductive, it was like sex — so slippery, soft and sensual. I was told how difficult throwing (on a wheel) was. But everything I tried wasn't really that hard.

Q. Did that sense of ease help or hinder you?

A. It was good, actually. Clay's become a feel-good thing for me. Even though I do other things in my life, I am always more balanced if I can work with clay. Wheel-throwing is a meditation. The clay is moving, slippery and smooth, and you are making this thing, this shape, move by your gestures. It's pretty cool and extremely responsive. With every move you make, you get a move. Everything you do leaves a mark.

Q. Are clay and glass similar media to work with?

A. Definitely. You are working with the same base, with very primary ingredients — the silica and minerals for the colorants. The glazes we use on pottery are the same elements we use in glasswork. In clay, it is the quality of the glass (glaze) a lot of times that will make a bad piece good or a good piece great. Your work can have the most fabulous form but unless it's glazed properly, unless you are lucky enough for the glaze to react the way you want it to, the end result becomes a disappointment.

Q. Do you think that interdisciplinary approach has helped your creative process?

A. No doubt. When you work with clay and glaze, you have to wait to see results. You're putting it in a sealed kiln that takes hours to fire and cool. But with glass, it's immediate. You watch it cool and watch the color change. You watch the reaction from the mineral to the glass to the type of glaze you apply. The light goes on, and you can make that correlation between glass and clay and figure out what the glaze is doing in the kiln. You have a better understanding of glazes because of working with glass. Whereas you don't see it right away with clay alone.

Q. Is glazing more important than the shape of the pot?

A. No, the shapes and forms are more important to me. It's the part I enjoy the most; pulling the forms up from a lump of clay. Sometimes the clay will say where it wants to go, sometimes I will say, and sometimes it is a marriage of the two. It doesn't matter how big or small the pot is, what matters is that it is not a competition — it is a communion.

Q. How many pounds of clay do you throw on a wheel?

A. Between 15 and 40 pounds. The first time I saw a lot of clay being thrown, it was by an older woman ... She could center 40 pounds of clay with no problem. She taught me how to be more patient. I also really admire Don Reitz, a Mainland potter. He moves clay with his hands like he is moving it with his mind. I've watched him throw 800 to 1,000 pounds of clay in the same time it took other potters to throw 30 pounds.

Q. What's in your new show?

A. There are three different kinds of firings: raku, high fire and pit fire. I've played around with different techniques and used calligraphic forms in the resist while glazing as design elements. I was more concerned with the glaze doing what I wanted.

Q. So many things can go wrong in the process. How do you deal with the disappointments?

A. You have to keep the idea of non-attachment intact so you don't go crazy. You try to control it to a certain point, but there's that variable of not knowing exactly how it is going to come out. Because of that, the boredom gets kicked out of the picture. And because you don't know exactly what's going to happen, you also have those pleasant, serendipitous surprises when you open up the kiln. Sometimes, you have 10 pieces and they all come out great. Other times, you may like only one out of a hundred. It's all been done before. I am my own harshest critic.

Q. Where did you study ceramics?

A. All over the place. I took workshops and classes, but it was my peers that taught me the most. If you take a workshop and come away with one good thing, it was a pretty darn good workshop. I do a lot of reading and research on my own. I am connected to the ceramic community here. If it weren't for ceramics, I would never have met Charlene (Tashima, his partner). The people that are involved in ceramics here are a helluva good crowd to be with.

Q. What advice would you give a beginner interested in ceramics?

A. If you are willing to put time into it, you won't be disappointed. If you need to hold on to your work, don't be a potter. I love to teach. I am team-teaching a class at the YWCA now. Sometimes, new students come in with this unbelievable excitement for clay. I want to feed that.