Copyright © 1999 Doug Browe

We have been fortunate in having had great role models to emulate in setting up our studio in Northern California. We have both worked in small, personal 1 or 2 person studios. We have both worked in group studios, where each person worked autonomously on their own work and shared the chores of clay preparation, wood processing, kiln building and processing and we have both worked as studio assistants in large shops, where many people share the duties needed to produce a single body of work.

"...continuation of the apprentice system is of profound importance to us."

Our current studio has been organized to include space for a training program. Because we produce a broad range of ware, it is possible for potters with varying levels of ability to contribute to the studio chores. A person with excitement but only a beginning level of training can join in the production of our studio ware and thus learn in the time-tested way: through doing.

We have had many apprentices over the last 15 years. They have come from all over the US and Europe including England, Sweden and Italy.

The importance of the continuation of the apprentice system is of profound importance to us. Potters are, worldwide, leaving this important task to our schools and universities. This, for many of us, falls short of the apprenticeship system by its lack of context. Universities and schools are wonderful centers of learning but lack a true connection to a living system.

"The work that truly moves us is the work that has withstood the test of time."

Our reasons for the continuation of the apprenticeship system are really quite simple, the work that attracts us the most is the historic pottery made by a sequence of potters who started as apprentices and later continued that tradition by training others.

The work that truly moves us is the work that has withstood the test of time. Work of true importance, that which after many generations is still vital and powerful, has been made by potters working within the context of their community, in close proximity to their material sources and who are part of the tradition of clay work passed from potter to apprentice.