Potters Market at the Mint
September 27, 2025
Zan Barnes Pottery, Dillsboro NC
I explore repeating surface patterns contrasted with the thrown form and accentuated by the organic caress of the soda vapor.
I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina in my father’s pottery studio. I was lucky to be immersed in a thriving community of craftsmen who worked in a wide variety of materials and techniques and it has greatly shaped how approach my own work.
Pottery is very much about the physical interaction with the ceramic object, the balance of a piece in the hand, subtle texture over the surface and how the hand will find and experience these areas in a very direct way. The innate mark making that the soda fired surface creates has led me to a very organic collaboration with the kiln itself. I focus on clean forms with edges that provide a blank canvas for my stamping and for the vapor to flash across and interact with. I am interested in how the geometric patterns and the repetition of my stamps contrast with and accentuate the curves of the thrown form as well as the organic shapes left by the caress of the soda vapor. My stamps are hand carved from clay and bisque fired so I can rapidly carve new variations and experiment with how the scale and motif affect the overall design of the vessel. I use a solely matt glaze palate as the introduction of soda creates glossy areas and beautiful fading between the two surface qualities. I favor a cool color palate as a contrast to the warm earthy surface that the flashing slip provides so there is always a distinct transition between the glazed and unglazed surfaces.
A mug sitting on a clean white pedestal is a dead thing to me. Pottery was never the untouched piece on the top shelf of the china cabinet; it was the much loved mug that you dig for every morning because the coffee just tastes better out of that specific one. I strive for my work to have that same immediacy of being handled or interacted with every day of the owner’s life. My greatest wish is for each piece to invite the viewer to pick it up, touch it, feel it, see how it fits in the hand, converse with it on the most intimate level, skin to skin.