Almost 20 years ago, Peggy Hamlin took a pottery class with her 14 year old daughter at the local YMCA. "From the moment I put my fingers into the clay…" she said, an echo of nostalgia in her tone, "I knew I didn't ever want to stop." When asked why she favored sculpting and hand building, she explained, in true mom fashion, "the classroom only had three wheels and I wanted to make sure my daughter got one." As to why she favors animals as the subject of her work? "I enjoy the challenge but more, I just love animals. I love everything about them." If she wasn't creating pottery, Peggy says that you'd probably find her working as a veterinarian or Vet Tech. "Anywhere with animals really."  
   Come meet the animal-loving artist herself when Peggy joins seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd, open to the public, at Harmon Museum, during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)
Connect with Peggy on her Facebook page and check out what she has for sale on her Etsy shop.

    "Through the late 70s, while working a full-time job, David began restoring and rebuilding antiques for dealers, collectors, and museums. He experimented with 'aged' painted finishes and developed a line of reproductions to market to the public. By 1980, with local resources for aged lumber and antique parts exhausted, David left his full-time job to devote himself to reproducing American antique furniture reproductions in New England, Shaker, and Pennsylvania German styles. The business began as 'David T. Smith - Cabinetmakers and Grainers.'
  ... In an attempt to fulfill the need for hard-to-find quality accessories for his furniture line, David spent many hours in museums and their archives researching early American redware. He developed an original lead glaze and built an outdoor wood fired kiln. The result was a very authentic line of redware plates and thrown forms that antique and pottery collectors embraced. After the success of the pottery, and with a desire to expand and enhance the onsite creative American crafts atmosphere, a blacksmith forge and carving shop were added. The business then became 'The Workshops of David T. Smith.' " - taken from DavidTSmith.com
Come meet the artist himself when David joins seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd at Harmon Museum, open to the piublic during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)
Learn more about David and see what he has for sale on his website.

​   "I had the studio before I knew what I was going to do with it.  We bought some property with an old house on it in 1998.  I knew I wanted to keep the house to use as a place to do messy crafts with my kids and friends.  We built our new house and kept the other one and dubbed it 'The Gardenhouse.'
   In 2010, friend of mine talked me into doing a pottery workshop, pressing leaves into clay.  I was hooked.  I bought a kiln a few months later and a wheel shortly after that.  I obsessed over You Tube videos on throwing, hand building and glaze making."
   "When my husband passed away from a sudden heart attack in 2013, I needed to make a choice about how I was going to go from stay-at-home mom to full time bread winner... I still don’t really think of it (pottery) as a business. I’m really just doing what I’m passionate about."
- collected from Trish's interview with WestSide Market.
Come meet the artist herself when Trish joins seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd at Harmon Museum, open to the piublic during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)
Connect with Trish on the Gardenhouse Pottery Facebook page and browse what she has for sale in her Etsy shop.

   "As a potter and ceramics teacher, I love being able to spread my love of handmade pottery to others.   The act of a potter expressing themselves and creatively giving a part of their personality while bringing the depth of their experiences in clay to life within a beautiful pot is why I make pottery.    I like to make pottery because of the human connection which is formed, when one person appreciates the gifts, talents, and expressions of another and brings a handmade piece into their lives and homes.  In a world where we are constantly bombarded with technology and the newest manufactured things, the idea of slowing down to appreciate the handmade and keeping the traditions of handmade alive reminds us of our shared history and humanity."
Meet the artist herself when Karan joins seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd, open to the public, at Harmon Museum, during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)
Shop some of Karan's work on her Etsy store page or let her teach you some basics of throwing on her YouTube Channel.

​Mike and his wife Karen are a husband and wife team who have been creating pottery together for over 40 years. Working in the space between utilitarian and fine art, their pottery that is not only beautiful but functional. They mix their own glazes and fire the pots in a fiber gas kiln of their own design. "We believe that people who have beautiful artwork in their homes also like to use beautiful handmade pots at their table."
Learn more about this creative couple at their website and check out this interview the Arts Council of Lebanon did with Mike. Come talk functional art when Mike and Karen join the seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd, open to the public, at Harmon Museum, during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)

    "Greg Neal is a self-taught potter, born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio. His interest began with making pottery in high school, and he continued on as a hobby potter for several years. Greg became a full time artist over 25 years ago, marketing his work primarily at juried art shows in the Midwest and southern states. Greg's wife Amy joined Neal Pottery in 2006 and assists Greg both in the studio and at art shows.   The focus of Greg’s work has been on functional stoneware, with an additional line of unique high fire art pieces. The ability to create both styles of pottery fulfills his desire for exploring various techniques in throwing, glazing and firing. All pieces are wheel thrown or hand constructed, with custom glazes mixed in our studio. The designs of Neal Pottery are original and remain loyal to the idea that pottery should be purposeful as well as objects to be admired."
-taken from Greg's website.
Come meet the artist himself when Greg joins seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd, open to the public, at Harmon Museum, during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)
See what Greg has for sale in his Etsy shop.

An exerpt taken from the "about me" page of his website.
"...High school art class was my first formal introduction to clay work. We were handbuilding, pinchpots and slabs.  I was falling in love with it. In the industrial arts room next door there was a kickwheel underneath a sheet of plywood which was being used as a table.  I asked about it and the art teacher said he didn’t know anything about how to use it.  So he asked around.  He convinced the shop teacher to uncover it and he found (out) the spouse of (another) teacher had taken ceramics in college.  She agreed to meet with me on a Saturday morning and introduce me to the wheel.  It was an incredible moment.  There is much I do not remember from those days, but that morning, I remember every detail."
Learn more about Fred on his website and meet the artist when he joins seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd, open to the public, at Harmon Museum, during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)

​      "Continuing the traditions of American potters dating to 1630, Greg Shooner and Mary Spellmire-Shooner re-create authentic redware pottery at their Oregonia, Ohio studio.  Greg and Mary use their years of pottery experience to make a ware that is unrivaled in its interpretation of rare antiques.  They work alone, with a passionate commitment to quality and artistic control.  A lifelong interest in art led them separately to pottery , then together to the study of redware.
          Redware is an earthenware pottery utilizing a red to pinkish burning clay body and was among the very first commercial products to be manufactured and used by European settlers to North America.  Its fragile nature and its lead glaze rendered it obsolete as soon as an economically feasible alternative (salt-glazed stoneware, tin or glass) was available.
          There has been a resurgence of appreciation for the warmth and beauty of this forgotten folk art in the past forty years and the Shooners enjoy a unique space in this renaissance.  Sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm, they have lectured and demonstrated often, including the "American Ceramics Conference" at the Winterthur Museum in Wilmington, Delaware, the “Dishcamp” conference at Eastfield Village in East Nassau, New York as well as William and Mary College and  New York University. The Shooners also share the unique beauty of their work, their pieces are represented in museum collections as far away as Stoke-on Trent in England to the permanent  collection of the White House in Washington D.C. and Camp David.
          This ware is truly a labor of love, and is recognized as the finest in its field,  coveted by period enthusiasts from coast to coast."
Come meet the artist himself when Greg joins seven other Warren County Potters for the art exhibition, Masters of Ceramics. The show opens with a FREE reception January 18th 6:30-8:30pm. Can't make it? The artists may be gone but the exhibition will remain through February 22nd, open to the public, at Harmon Museum, during normal business hours. (note: admission is charged for entry into the museum)

Ohio is known around the world for its pottery made from the rich clay deposits found throughout the State.  More than 2000 years ago the prehistoric Hopewell peoples who lived in Ohio used the clay of Ohio’s earth and fashioned a variety of utilitarian vessels.  Fast forward into the late 19th and early 20thcentury and Ohio became nationally known for art potteries such as Rookwood Pottery, Roseville Pottery and Russel Wright.   
But the story doesn’t end there.  Unlike many early forms of art and handcraft that are today seen only in museum programs or historic re-enactments, the work of the potter continues to flourish in Ohio.  The potters represented in the gallery show use wood, electricity and/or gas to fire their kilns to as high as 2300 degrees Fahrenheit.  The effect that these fuels have, in this violent atmosphere of the kiln, can create on the surface of the ware, results that are often unpredictable, sometimes subtle, but always uniquely beautiful.
Be sure to catch the Earth & Fire Exebition running January 18th to Feburary 22nd!