My life making pottery began in the mid 70’s. I took lessons with a local potter, Faith Henson. After a couple of years, I participated in a couple of shows, Apple Chill and one of the early Art’s Council street fairs in Durham. For about a year, I created my pots in Faith’s backyard studio, but soon I purchased a kick wheel, and kiln and set it all up in my apartment. The kick wheel sitting on plastic and newspaper in the spare bedroom and the kiln in the kitchen wired into the modified 220V for my oven. I had thrown my dilapidated stove out and what cooking I did was done on a hotplate. I had a lab puppy, so newspapers lay around my floors all the time anyway. After a few years, I realized it wasn’t an easy living for a single potter and was an expensive hobby, so I sold my equipment and gave it up for 20+ years, keeping it in the back of my mind as a way to supplement an income when I retired.
In ’97 I was excited when Joyce, my wife took to pottery after taking a few classes. She really inspired me, so in early 2000 we rented studio space at Claymakers on Foster Street in downtown Durham. We now have our own studio at home and I’m living my retirement dream, that of being a full-time potter.
There are many potters whose work I admire. Joyce and I have met some of them and have attended workshops lead by some of the best potters in the country and maybe world. It makes you try all kinds of things, but I’m finally beginning to feel more comfortable doing the pot I love to make, the Face Jug. The book “Turners and Burners” has been my biggest influence. The folk potters of the past added faces to their jugs to make them sell, for whimsical expression and maybe as a form of relaxation. I make them to make me smile and as a form of whimsical expression and relaxation. Sometimes seeing someone smile when they look at them is as good as selling one and who knows, they might come back.
I do other pots; vases, mugs, bowls, plates, platters, planters and lidded vessels and sometimes it is very difficult not to put a face on them. I work with white, tan and reddish brown stoneware; medium range clay fired in electric kiln to cone 6.