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Beth works in a 19th-century barn behind her Vermont home. “None of the windows
are the same size and the door casements are at odd angles, but I fell in love
with it the first time we saw it.”
Philip casts and fires the plates, cups,
and vases in town and hauls them in a pickup to Beth’s studio, where she spends
eight hours a day decorating them. An assistant then adds color under Beth’s
direction. “I think of each piece as a way to connect with the people who
collect my work,” she says. “Not long ago, a woman who’d bought a Christmas
ornament with the word ‘Dad’ on it told me that, the year her husband died, she
and her children decorated their tree with just that one ornament, in his
memory. That’s what I want to do: give people a way to express themselves
through my art.”
(f) A rack of vases awaits
the kiln. Beth
fires 60 to 80 pieces at a
time. (g) She keeps two kilns in
her studio; there are
six others at her plant
in town, where her husband makes
the
ceramics.
(h) Beth sketches compulsively. “I’m always drawing, but I’m not organized
enough to say, ‘I’m going to do a series about this or that.’ I just sketch and
see what comes.” (i) Another tribute to her grandmother’s farm. The barn on
the second cup is based on her own, except she’s added a cupola.
homegrown page
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