“I do this to support my art, so back off,” says waitress/artist Charlotte Potter.

“It’s an interesting, crazy show. I made this specifically to challenge people’s ideas of what should be up there.”

Her current show, The Genius Waitress, named after a Tom Robbins’ poem, celebrates her artwork, earrings, glass-blown lamps and livelihood. It’s up at the Brew Pub until the end of the month.

Most of the work is encaustic, a process by which Potter arranges seemingly disparate objects together on canvas with a special wax concoction.

The show’s namesake piece - complete with a salt shaker and text from the poem - isn’t even at the Brew Pub, as restaurateur August Spier bought the piece before the show opened on August 25.

“I had to sell the piece,” Potter says. “It’s totally telling the story of the server, literally and metaphorically.”

Potter may go to grad school next year for glass blowing, but until then, she’ll be serving and showing at the Brew Pub, Craft Gallery and other venues around town.

Here’s what the poet Robbins says about Potter’s type:

“As a type, the genius waitress is sweet and sassy,
funny and smart; young, underestimated, fatalistic,
weary, cheery (not happy, cheerful: there’s a
difference and she understands it), a tad bohemian,
often borderline alcoholic, frequently pretty (though
her hair reeks of kitchen and bar); as independent as
a cave bear (though ever hopeful of ‘true love’) and,
above all, genuine.”

That’s her. Check it out.