She’s danced ballet, worked on a cod fishing boat and learned to fly a plane. But there’s one thing Point Loma resident Elizabeth Woolrych has been involved with for more than 40 years — creating unique pottery.

Woolrych has been creating her ceramic sculptures and pottery in the Spanish Village Art Center in San Diego’s Balboa Park since 1980. Spanish Village is home to more than 200 local artisans and multiple studios, and visitors can watch them as they work, teach classes and hold demonstrations.

Woolrych will be one of more than 30 professional artists showcasing their work at four gardens in Pacific Beach and La Jolla during the fourth annual San Diego Coastal Art Studios Tour on Saturday, Sept. 14.

She employs several different styles and techniques, including the primitive Japanese firing technique of raku, which uses seaweed and plants to influence the final color of the clay.

She also experiments with seaweed wraps using a saggar, a container used during firing to protect the wares. It affects the color and the patterns in the color, she said.

Woolrych said her athleticism as a child growing up in Point Loma ultimately sparked her interest in becoming a potter, a skill that requires physical dexterity and patience.

“I was super athletic and would jump off the pier in Ocean Beach and jump off the roof of our house,” she said.

That was in the early 1960s. Her parents lived in Point Loma until she was about 3, moved to St. Louis and then returned to Point Loma when she was 6.

“I went to first grade at Sunset View [Elementary] School on Hill Street,” Woolrych said. “I walked to school … and I loved jumping over bushes and walking in both the street and the canyons.”

Her parents encouraged her and her siblings to try new things, and they encouraged Woolrych, who was 6 at the time, to take dance lessons.

“To be a good dancer, you need a lot of coordination. It was good for me and I became a ballet dancer,” Woolrych said.

Her interest in pottery began when she discovered the Ocean Beach studio of Franklin Jew, a respected potter.

“I pestered him until he agreed to let me join the adult pottery class, even though I was only 15,” Woolrych said. “I loved the idea that I was creating … something that came from me.”

When she was 16, she learned how to fly a plane after her parents gifted her flying lessons.

“I loved it, but I didn’t like the idea of having passengers,” Woolrych said.

After graduating from Point Loma High School, Woolrych took classes at several community colleges. But she said none of the majors available allowed her to focus on exactly what she wanted to do.

“I wanted to work the clay right away,” she said. “I found a two-year apprenticeship in Cape Cod [Mass.] with a master potter and was able to work with clay every day.”

Though she loved the work, it wasn’t easy, she said.

“I worked for pretty much nothing because I was being trained. My parents helped me a little bit, but I had to figure out my own lodging,” she said.

She spent a lot of hours “mixing clay and other menial jobs.”

But at the end of two intense years, 1975-76, Woolrych was able to “perfect some very intricate techniques.”

She also was ready for change. Still in Cape Cod, she took a job on a fishing boat.

The crew used a 42-foot Bruno Stillman vessel designed to handle the weather and waves.

She worked on the boat for only a few months. The work “was often scary,” she said.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Woolrych said. “But I made more money than I’ve ever made in my life.”

She used the money she saved to attend a dance class and perform with a professional dance company in Boston.

In her 20s, Woolrych found herself in a cycle of working various jobs, saving money and dancing.

By the time she returned to San Diego because of a family emergency, she was still interested in dancing and pottery but worked as a waitress to make ends meet.

Friends told her about the San Diego Potters’ Guild in Spanish Village.

“It turned out one of the artists needed a partner right away to help take care of her studio,” Woolrych said. “Because I could make things quite well for my age and she needed someone quickly, I was able to get in.”

In the four decades since, she’s been teaching pottery classes for children and adults and continues learning about her craft.

She said dancing and pottery have similarities.

“When you are dancing, you are a shape and you have to hold the shape in your mind and with your body. When I am making pottery, I am making shapes,” she said.

“I’m more interested in the shape than the color and how it’s decorated. It’s about subtle colors, simple shapes and clean lines.”

Woolrych lives with her husband and longtime partner, David Perkins, not far from where she grew up. She often walks along Sunset Cliffs in the evenings.

Her pottery can be found in several collections and galleries throughout the West.

For more information about the Coastal Art Studios Tour, visit SDCoastalArtStudios.com.

To find out more about Woolrych’s pottery and classes, go to the Spanish Village Art Center, Studio 6, 1770 Village Place, Balboa Park; call (619) 236-8997; or visit ewoolrychpottery.com.