#MadewithaBailey Interview with Barry Rhodes

Barry Rhodes Instagram: @barryrhodespottery Website: www.rhodespottery.com

1. How did you get started working in clay?

It was 1977 and I was in grad school studying Physics at Emory University. I took a year off to teach high school and had the summer free. A friend wanted to take a pottery class at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta and asked if I would keep her company. Naively I said yes knowing nothing about working with clay. I remember a week or so before my first class I was at a party and was introduced to a professional potter named Steve McGuire. Trying to make conversation I said that I was signed up to take my first “Pottery on the Wheel” class the following week. He was very nice and asked if I was going to take any hand building first. I remember thinking to myself that my hands were pretty strong already. Luckily I did not say that to him. My first class was with Rick Berman. Watching Rick throw a perfect cylinder from an amorphous lump of clay, I knew I had to learn to throw pots. I did not realize at the time that pottery would become my life’s passion, but I have been making pots ever since.

2. What Bailey products do you use to make your work and how do they help?

I have a Bailey Pro X wheel and a Bailey extruder with both the standard 4 and standard 9 barrels. My work is both thrown and hand built. I treat the wheel as just another tool that I use to create my forms. Almost every kiln load contains pieces that are thrown, extruded, or a combination of the two.

3. What’s a tool that you could not live without?

I have a 25-year-old electric kiln with a wall mounted electric controller. I fire exclusively in an electric kiln and slow cool my glazes. The controller is essential to my work. I could not produce the work I do without the temperature control and ramp rates the controller provides.

4. What inspires you?

There are so many fantastic potters, many in Western North Carolina, doing such great work that I am inspired to push my own efforts to greater heights. Like many of my generation, I have also looked to the pottery of Japan for inspiration. I am especially drawn to Oribe pottery which often combines beautiful patterns with very organic glazing. In the US, the work of Richard Devore and Rick Dillingham have been inspirations over the years. I was fortunate to have as mentors Rick Berman and Glenn Dair, with frequent visits to the studios of Ron Myers and Michael Simon.

5. When you’re not creating ceramics, where might we find you?

There seems to be an endless supply of chores on our 26 acres in Madison County, NC that need my attention. But when not working in the studio or on the house, barn, yard etc, you will find me on a trout stream fly fishing.

6. What are you excited to try next in the studio?

I have been experimenting with more micro-crystalline glazes as a way to create surface variations and visual texture from work fired in an electric kiln. And given that my current kiln is about to be replaced, I may turn the old one into a gas fired soda kiln or even wood.