(light music) - It is complicated, but it's simple.

If I can do it, anybody can do it.

I first got interested in pottery in '71 or '72 at Staples High School.

It was something about the wheel.

The clay gets in you.

I couldn't get enough of it once I did it.

I spent all the free time that I could get in there and do it.

And then I went to Bemidji State to study pottery and school wasn't for me.

So I got married, had kids, worked on the railroad, and after about 25 years, I had the opportunity to start again.

We started out by doing a few shows and it was well received and given me incentive to do it more and get better at it.

I don't consider myself an artist.

I'm a craftsman.

I like to make a good sturdy pot that looks good, yet it will hold up to kitchen use for the functional stuff.

This is gonna get used as a medium mixing bulk, more than likely, unless somebody grows a flower in it or something.

But I like to put this thick rim on them.

That way it'll take a little ding in the sink or in the kitchen.

It just makes 'em a little more sturdy.

I start with the clay.

The more amount of clay you use, the harder it gets.

It's about the centering and you gotta have some strength to do it.

Form it, trim it the next day, put on the handles, do whatever you have to do.

Then it goes on a drying rack.

Once it's on the drying rack, you don't have to worry about it.

You can leave it there for a year if you want to.

Usually it's two, three weeks and then it's fired.

We're waxing the bottom with paraffin wax to repel the glaze when we dip 'em.

Otherwise, if that's glazed, it will stay attached to the shelf When it turns to glass, the art part probably comes in with the glazing.

It's basically sand mixed with water, and when you dip a bis fired pot into it, the water sucks into the pot and it leaves like a coating of sand on the outside and when you fire it to 2,230 degrees, it turns to glass so it's waterproof and usable.

The clay I use will only take up to a certain temperature and starts doing weird stuff.

It'll bloat or pinhole.

There's all kinds of little problems that come out when you push your stuff higher than it's supposed to be.

And the glazes are made to fit the clays that you're using.

There's a shrinkage on the clay and the glaze has to shrink with it, so if you push it too hard, the glaze will come off the pot and it'll end up on the shelf and you got a mess.

I kind of know when I unload the kiln, oh, I need a bunch of bowls in this color.

I need mugs in that color.

That kind of determines what color I'm gonna do on a piece.

Vase is a little bit different.

I play with vases more.

That's my favorite thing to make.

You can do more experimentation and stuff with that.

When I make a coffee mug, I know what I want it to look like when it gets done.

With a vase, the kiln can maybe do something special for me.

I really love pulling the clay after center and opening to watch the pot grow.

I just get a kick out of it every time.

You concentrate on the piece and everything else goes away.

(bright music) You sell a lot more of the smaller stuff than you do the bigger stuff because of the price.

I put a price on a pot that I would pay myself.

I get told that I'm too reasonable, I'm too reasonable, and other potters have told me that that's way too much of a pot for that price.

Somebody will buy one of my coffee mugs where they won't spend a bunch of money on a coffee mug, and once they get started collecting pottery, then that's a good thing for me.

With repeating the colors and making all different mugs, soup mugs, sets of bowls, utensil holders, it seems like people start collecting, they come back year after year and buy some more pieces, same color pattern.

You have really good customers and I don't know how long they'll come, 10, 15 years, but eventually they fill up everything with as many pots as they wanna buy from you, right?

They'll start collecting another color and do it all again.

You get somebody in here excited, you didn't just gain a customer, you gained a bunch of customers.

They tell their parents, their friends.

It makes you feel good about yourself.

When we first started doing shows and people would (indistinct) on, you know, you'd hear that, and I think I told my wife that, "You know, this is the first time in like I don't know how long that I feel good about myself."

I've come a long ways from where I started.

I still got a long ways to go, but I've done it my way and I'll keep doing it my way.

(bright music continues) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.