Handmade Pots

“This technique provides a wide range of bright, sharp colors. More importantly, I feel the majolica technique best allows me to convey the kind of attitude or feeling I want my pottery to invoke – that is one of lightheartedness.”

Stanley Mace Andersen’s functional earthenware tableware certainly achieves his goal. The exuberance of his flowing brushstrokes creates a rush of good feelings, like a walk through a meadow on a perfect summer day.

In England, where Richard Batterham was born in 1936, he is considered the leading living maker of domestic stoneware. It’s a reputation that has been made by a life spent diligently working with discipline and talent to perfect his functional forms and lovely muted glazes.

Interested in craft and design from a young age, Richard studied at the Bryanston School. He was taught pottery by Donald Potter who had worked with Eric Gill and Michael Cardew. After his National Service, he apprenticed with Bernard Leach at St. Ives for two years. He married Dinah Dunn in 1959, and they set up housekeeping in Durweston, Dorset.

Fifteen years after graduating from High School, Tom Guell returned to the pottery wheel that he had loved so much during a senior year Independent Study in Pottery. He tells us about his journey juggling a full-time job as a union ironworker, a young family, and aspiring potter in rural Wisconsin.

As has been our tradition at this time of year, Jim and I wanted to share our favorite mugs with you. These are not new mugs you are looking at or mugs you could buy in a store today, but mugs we have been living with for many years now.

Plus Photos from the Bailey Holiday Party

The First Annual Event

Lucy's command of her material is clearly evidenced in the pots, which she throws on her Bailey wheel. There is mastery in the subtle beauty of each of her forms. We love seeing the range of her work and hearing about her inspirations.

When Anne was at NCECA in Portland this year she bought this beautiful mug from artist Ben Jordan. "I was immediately taken with the balance of form and function in this piece. The floral decoration is integrated extremely well with the form. The handle is comfortable and fits very nicely in the hand. The clay is a rich rust red and the glaze reminiscent of a sepia photograph. It has a perfect high pitch ring when you flick it. Even the bottom is decorated! Beyond these technical things, it's just an absolutely gorgeous piece of pottery; so well considered in each and every way. I had to have it and brought it back to Kingston with me to share with all of you. If you do not know of Ben Jordan now you do. Here is a short interview with Ben Jordan." -Anne Bailey at NCECA 2017

Mystery Pot 30, Biography of the Artist

"I enjoy making pottery because it comes from inside," Lucy Lewis told The LA Times in 1984, speaking in Keresan, her tribal language.

The Perfect Jar by Potter Chris Staley