Seven potters founded POW! in 2014: Adero Willard, Hayne Bayless, Kathy King, Arthur Halvorsen, Hannah Niswonger, Mark Shapiro and Sam Taylor. Our project continues with Mark, Sam, Hannah, Adero and Hayne. We all make functional pottery, but we build our work using a variety of techniques, including wheel-throwing, slab-construction and pinching. Many of us focus heavily on decoration in our work, but we take that common thread and pull it in different directions. Between us we cover a full range of firing temperatures and atmospheres: Adero uses earthenware clay; Hannah fires in mid-range oxidation; Hayne’s work is cone ten reduction; Mark and Sam's work is wood-fired. We value our differences, and will add potters to our roster who broaden the range of work represented by our core collaborative.
Hayne Bayless
Hayne Bayless is a studio potter in Ivoryton, Connecticut. In 1993 he quit a perfectly good job at a newspaper to make pots full-time. Other than lessons from a potter in Tokyo when he was 19, and later a handful of workshops, he managed to avoid any formal instruction in ceramics. He abandoned throwing early on, preferring the freedom of hand-building to the tyranny of the concentric.
He sells work through galleries and at craft shows, and has won the top awards at the Smithsonian Craft Show and the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show.
In the studio he keeps in mind how Constantin Brancusi described his approach to sculpture: "Each material has its own life ... we must not try to make materials speak our language, we must go with them to the point where others will understand their language."
Hannah Niswonger
Hannah received an MFA in ceramic sculpture from Alfred University in Alfred, New York. As an undergraduate she attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut where she received a BA in studio art. She has taught courses in ceramics at MassArt, Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. She exhibits in regularly in galleries and juried craft shows, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art Show and the Smithsonian Craft Show and CraftBoston. She currently lives in Winchester, MA with her husband, three kids, one dog and four fish.
Adero Willard
Adero Willard currently lives in Western Massachusetts where she is a studio potter and instructor of ceramics at Holyoke Community College. Adero received a Bachelors in Fine Art at Alfred University in 1995 and Masters of Fine Arts at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2006, where she studied with Walter Ostrom and Neil Forrest. She completed a year-long residency in 2008 at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Maine, where she was the Salad Days Artist. As a full time artist, Adero has shown in a number of galleries and craft shows nationally, including Ferrin Gallery, Craft Boston and Smithsonian Craft Show in DC. She has taught at a number of universities and art centers through out her career. Adero's work is featured in a number of publications and books on ceramics. Her interest in surface decoration is life-long, and is fueled by a passion for textile design, painting, and collage.
Mark Shapiro
Mark Shapiro makes wood-fired pots in Western Massachusetts. He is a frequent lecturer, curator, panelist, and writer, and is mentor to a half-dozen apprentices who have trained at his Stonepool Pottery. His work was featured in the 4th World Ceramics Biennial in Icheon, Korea, and is in many public collections. His interviews of Karen Karnes, Michael Simon, Paulus Berensohn, and Sergei Isupov, are in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art and he recently edited A Chosen Path: the Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes (UNC Press). He is on the advisory board of Ceramics Monthly, and is a contributing editor to Studio Potter Magazine.
Sam Taylor
Sam Taylor has been making pottery in the foothills of the Berkshires for over 25 years. He is a self-described “slow potter”, making pots on his foot powered treadle wheel and firing them in his wood fired kiln. Pottery, art and collaboration are the main ingredients in Sam’s life. Sam’s work is getting to know, discovering, experiencing all the ways these ingredients go together. Sam is a studio potter and has performed all the associated tasks that go along with that title: exhibitor, teacher, organizer, builder, and promoter.
He has a BA in Art History from Beloit College. In1998 he started building kilns, wheels and studios in Gloucester, MA and at the Stonepool Pottery in Worthington, MA. In 1997 he built the wood kiln and studio in Westhampton, MA where he currently lives and works with his wife and three boys.