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
linda@christiansonpottery.com
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 clay and glaze materials. Our pots are thrown on a slow turning Korean-style kick 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. 

huntdalglish@gmail.com
www.bandanapottery.com
Instagram: @bandanapottery

Lisa Buck, Afton, MN

Lisa is a potter and educator living and working in the St. Croix River Valley of Minnesota. Her pots are built to be used, moving beautifully from oven to table, cupboard to hand or resting for refection on a shelf. She employs a combination of wheel-thrown, hand-built or carved techniques to produce her pieces that are forms of generous expression, embellished with hardy feet or handles. The interplay of terra sigillata, slip and glazed surface is characteristic of her work, which is fired in an electric kiln.

Lisa’s pottery has been exhibited in galleries nationwide and included in numerous books and publications. In her work you’ll see influences of her love of historic cooking pots and textiles, the resonate beauty of her time living in Morocco, as well as the rich Mingei-sota history that permeates her region. An avid hiker, Lisa is inspired by vigorous outdoor activities, in particular, hiking the ever-changing hills and prairies of her local state parks.

lisabuckpottery@gmail.com​
www.lisabuckpottery.com
Visit Lisa's webshop
Instagram: @lisabuckpottery

Nancy Green, Watkinsville, GA

Nancy Green works with stoneware clay and primarily focuses on making utilitarian ware for the table, kitchen, and for flower arrangements. Her work is primarily treadle wheel thrown and then modified with hand built components consisting of textured slabs. Surface treatments consist of natural ash or soda, or applied slips and glazes. Pieces are fired in either a soda or wood kiln.

Artist Statement:
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.

nancygreenceramics@gmail.com
www.nancygreenceramics.com
Instagram: @nancygreenceramics

Mike Helke, Stillwater, MN

Pots are profound objects that function in many ways—practically, ritualistically, and aesthetically among other ways. Throughout history and cross-culturally pots have helped facilitate and share culture. I am particularly interested in this and the way that interacting with a pot is a way to communicate with all of humanity, past or present. This communicative function can transport the user to another time, culture, and/or cultural context. In essence, this function helps us learn about our identity, who we are, what we evolved out of and perhaps what to evolve into, or what not to.

When I make a pot, I am collaborating with a personal experience, a vessel, and a broad range of potential subject matter. The physical and/or conceptual sensibility of these objects is a reflection of the source or experience. As for the vessel and the accompanying subject matter, they adapt and play off of one another to become the pot. These works reflect an animate physical and conceptual sensibility that is catalyst for a call and response relationship between me the maker, the object, and its user.

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.

mike@mikehelkepottery.com
www.mikehelkepottery.com
Visit Mike's webshop
Instagram: @mike_helke_pottery

Maggie Jaszczak, Shafer, MN

As an admirer of the Shaker design maxim that ‘beauty rests in utility,’ I make wheel thrown and hand built pots that draw on the quiet objects of basic function. Minimal in form and surface, and hovering between the primitive and refined, pieces are built roughly by hand or thrown on the wheel, and then scraped and pared down to achieve their final form. Surfaces emphasize the subtleties of material and process as the primary decorative elements – dragged grog, finger marks, and the layering of white slips and terra sigillata with glazes.

maggie.jaszczak@gmail.com
www.maggiejaszczak.com
Visit Maggie’s webshop
Instagram: @maggiejaszczak

Tom Jaszczak, Shafer, MN

I seek a balance between tradition and modern. My pots have layers, first the decoration that is bright yet flat and in the foreground. My decoration is minimal or often a simple graphic, placement of this moment is essential to the focal point of each pot. Second the slip that is fluid and has a rich depth in surface. Finally, the ruggedness of the clay with scrapes and small pits. This cumulative journey of a pot tells a story. This story brings the user into the moment of making and firing. Slips, trimming lines, finger marks, edges, wad marks, drips, scratches and shadows capture a moment in time and tell more of the story. I react to every firing with new ideas and new information; this keeps the overall process fresh and exciting. A successful pot has depth through these processes, obtains humbleness through form and both a thoughtfulness and playfulness in function.

tom.jaszczak@gmail.com
tomjaszczak.com
Visit Tom's webshop
Instagram: @jaszczakpottery

Randy Johnston, River Falls, WI

My work has specific modern connotations and addresses the development of abstraction within the aesthetic of utilitarian objects. My pursuit is to enlarge the boundaries of conventional perceptions and enable new methods of communication and combination. 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.

randy.johnston@uwrf.edu
www.mckeachiejohnstonstudios.com
Visit Randy's webshop
Instagram: @randyjjohnston