Linda Christianson - Host Potter
After 45 some years, I am still excited and troubled opening the studio door. The qualities that I search for in my work are fairly straight forward. I am interested in a pot that does its duty well yet can stand on its own as a visual object.
Trying to get the form right and then laying down a quiet surface with the woodkiln is always a challenge. My work hopefully acts like engaging tools in the life they carry forward.
35703 Vibo Trl, Lindstrom, MN 55045
Showroom always open.
christiansonpottery.com
Visit Linda's webshop
Instagram: @lindachristiansonpottery
Bandana Pottery
Michael Hunt & Naomi Dalglish
Bakersville, NC
We make our pots using primarily coarse, impure local materials in our studio in Western North Carolina. Our pots are thrown on a slow turning wheel, and the large jars are made using a traditional Korean paddle and anvil technique. Through this collaboration with powerful materials and processes, we hope to create an environment in which pots can be born with a beauty beyond what is possible with our own hands. Beginning with the geologic processes that form the coarse red clay, passing through our hands and kiln, the life of these pots is continued through years of daily use.
www.bandanapottery.com
Instagram: @bandanapottery
Lisa Buck, Afton, MN
I grew up in a household that valued working with your hands, “creating something out of nothing” my mother would say, and I find great pleasure in the routine, rhythm and physical work of making pots.
Following in the long tradition of studio and folk potters, I passionately pursue the good individual pot that comes from working in a series of related forms over time. An inveterate arranger, I see the world around me through the lens of composition and relationships, where visual components interact with each other to create a pleasing whole.
My pots are thrown, altered, hand built or carved, using whatever technique allows me to best convey a particular idea. I draw inspiration from nature, nearby in the hills of Afton State Park, as well as far away in the distant landscape of Morocco, where I lived for two years. My influences run from North African, French + Mexican cooking pots, the folk pottery and textiles of Asia, Africa and South America, as well as home design and the rich Mingei tradition that has surrounded me in Minnesota.
www.lisabuckpottery.com
Visit Lisa's webshop
Instagram: @lisabuckpottery
Nancy Green, Watkinsville, GA
Although I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, as a child I spent every possible moment in the country exploring the woods and playing in creeks. The earthy tones and minimalism of my functional pots reflect the nature that surrounded me as a child.
I gravitate towards a pot that is casual, quiet, and appears to have grown right out of the spot it sits. My aesthetic falls into a minimalist category, less is more for me. I am drawn to and hope to create pots that have an organic and natural quality to them. These are the pots that pull me in. Their irregularities give these pots a personality not unlike our own physical presence. I juxtapose minimalism, simple clean lines, designs that are unadorned but have a strong presence with aspects that are loose, organic, and casual.
My stoneware ceramic work is treadle wheel thrown, and then modified with hand built components. Surface treatments are natural ash or soda, slips, and applied glaze. My work is fired in either a wood or soda kiln.
Mike Helke, Stillwater, MN
I want my pots to live among their users, revealing their identity—their story over time through use and contemplation. Ideally, my pots help the user think, feel, question, and wonder how things could be rather than how they should be. I hope the user’s understanding of the pot evolves along with their personal perception of things, while it might also help them imagine or re-imagine their own hopeful future.
www.mikehelkepottery.com
Visit Mike's webshop
Instagram: @mike_helke_pottery
Maggie Jaszczak, Shafer, MN
Guided by the Shaker design philosophy that ‘beauty rests on utility’, I make quiet, mostly undecorated earthenware pots. With an eye to contemporary design, I draw on my interests in early clay and wooden objects, still life traditions, and folk art throughout history, to make trough-like vessels, vases, mugs and bowls.
Minimal in form and surface and hovering between primitive and refined, my pots combine soft lines and profiles with painted layers of mostly white slip and glaze. Using hand building and wheel throwing techniques, pieces are built roughly at first and then scraped and pared down to achieve their final form. Dragged grog and finger and brush marks emphasize the subtleties of material and process as the primary decorative elements, and red clay gives depth to the layers.
www.maggiejaszczak.com
Visit Maggie’s webshop
Instagram: @maggiejaszczak
Tom Jaszczak, Shafer, MN
Finger marks, trimming lines, edges, wad marks, slip drips, scratches, and shadows capture a moment in time like a photograph and tell a pot’s story. I find clay to be both humbling and poetic for its ability to record. As, a student in ceramics the pots I handled and admired in those formative years were those of local Minnesota potters. I saw the evidence of the hand, and a material quality in the local studio pottery that bound me to them. I strive for this in my own work and to be paired down to the essentials both in form and surface, but with a depth and richness through materiality. This materiality is achieved first, with the scrapes, small pits, and ruggedness of the red brick-like clay I use; then with a layer of poured slip, which adds fluidity, as well as a depth in surface picked up both from the iron clay underneath, and the spontaneity of the atmospheric soda firing in which I fire my work. Finally, a decorative/painterly element, painted with underglaze or colored slip, sits in the foreground. This cumulative journey of the pot tells my story, and this story brings the user into the moment of making and firing.
tomjaszczak.com
Visit Tom's webshop
Instagram: @jaszczakpottery
Randy Johnston, River Falls, WI
The work considers the relationship of architectural structure and spatial orientation. Many of the pieces suggest through their framework both an internal and external boundary system. Connecting these systems and identifying the dualities and the metaphoric potential of a form's austere directness, aggressiveness, and simplicity are challenges to be considered with each piece. Essential to a strong representation of each form is a feeling for its overall spatial structure. Moreover, the surface textures and marks are not an afterthought, but a tangible component of completion and fulfillment.
Jan McKeachie Johnston, River Falls, WI
My intent is that these pieces stand alone as visual objects. My hope is that they move beyond that to express emotional, sensual, tactile, spiritual, and ritual sensibilities—these sensibilities being enhanced by the communication and sharing that occurs through use. Accessibility is also an important component of my work and I am never happier than when someone expresses their delight in using one of my pieces.
mckeachiejohnstonstudios.com
Instagram: @janmckeachiejohnston