Working as a team

This is the guy I work with. The photographer caught him after or maybe during a wood firing! Paul and I will mark 27 years of our marriage and partnership in clay this fall. We were twenty seven when we met at the pottery in Iowa, so we've pretty much spent half our lives together.

If anyone would have told those starry eyed 27 yr olds that it was impossible to move to the woods and make a career creating and selling their wares, they wouldn't have listened. Well I am sure We both ignored what everyone that knew better told us. We just believed it was possible and we forged on.

One of the things I was told before I even met Paul was that if I planned to be an artist I should marry someone that could "support me." But after College , as I began my hands on experience in the pottery world, I saw many examples of couples who were making it work. One team, was Bill Coffman and Cynthia Mosedale of Linden Hills Pottery . Paul and I both worked for them in their first incarnation , the Crockery and Jar Company. People like Bill and Cynthia were out there actually doing it, so why couldn't we!

One thing I have learned is that it takes a special kind of relationship to keep things rolling in a market like this. And a good sense of humor with a sprinkling of patience. Paul and I collaborate on many items, but we work on pieces we consider our own, too. I think it is important to keep new ideas coming when involved in production work of any kind.

So yeah I didn't find a rich guy to support my art , but I got a creative partner in a relationship/business that has survived some pretty huge odds, and I wouldn't have it any other way.