About Bob

I have been working with clay for thirty years. After completing my MFA degree in ceramics from Southern Illinois University, I first settled in New York City and became a member of a pottery Co-op in lower Manhattan. I initially supported myself working mornings as an art handler, transporting sculptures, large paintings… anything artists and gallerists needed moved with care. In the afternoons and evenings I worked in my studio with about six other potters. I began showing my work in galleries in the city.

In 1978 I participated in my first American Crafts Council show at Rhinebeck, New York. I had no idea what to expect, and I don’t remember doing very well. I do remember meeting Josh Simpson and Nancee Meeker, as we were showing our work in the same small gallery in Soho.

In the summer of 1980 I was invited to work in the ceramics studio at Bennington College, where my brother Josh was an undergraduate student. Stanley Rosen and Jane Aebersold were the ceramic faculty members at the time and at the end of the summer, they asked if I’d like to be the studio tech and visiting artist for the semester. This great opportunity lasted for four years; I never went back to New York City.

I loved living in Vermont and in 1984 I became the resident potter at the Vermont State Craft Center in Middlebury .This position provided a studio and many teaching opportunities with community members and classes for Middlebury College. I continued to produce and show work regionally and nationally. During the summer I would return to Bennington College to teach a month-long ceramics class for pre-college students. During one of these summers I started Raku firing with my students and my own work was influenced by this teaching experience.

In 1991 I became the resident potter at the Shelburne Craft School, where I remained through 2001, when I married the lovely Karen Totman and moved to western Massachusetts. We live in a wonderful old farm house with an attached pottery studio. I am a full- time studio potter and occasionally teach workshops on Raku and pit-fired pottery. I continue to hone my craft in an environment where Karen’s family has cared for the land over many generations. The refinement of organic elements into classical forms of the vessel vernacular has fascinated and driven me as a potter. Managing clay’s malleability and fire’s ephemeral effects on forms and surfaces continues to ignite my decades-long creative investigations.