Artist Spotlight: Greg Shooner

​      "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)