Lights, Camera, Action: Ceramic Arts Daily Announces Artist Studio Tour Video Contest

Today, in addition to announcing this exciting contest, I am presenting another excerpt from Ceramics Monthly’s (in-print) Studio Visit Series to get you all thinking about what your videos might include. In this post, John Bauman gives us a glimpse into his pottery studio, a “teensy” oasis in an Indiana industrial park. – Jennifer Harnetty, editor.

When my wife, Dar, and I moved here twenty years ago, we planted trees surrounding the property. Because of that planting, when we are in the shop or the home, we don’t have so much of a sense of being in an industrial park (see panoramic shot below).

A panoramic photo collage of John Bauman's home and pottery studio

My main shop is a 24 X 32 feet finished (insulated, drywalled) pole building. Immediately behind that is my first, tiny kiln building – a 12 X 16-foot pole building, now a lean-to to the third building, another 24 X 32-foot unfinished pole barn that doubles as kiln building and cold storage. Behind the finished shop is a small concrete pad. In the summer, Dar often chooses to take her work outside and work in the open air on that pad, shaded by one of the many huge maples that grace our acre.

Though sometimes I wish I had a bigger kiln (and the time to assemble the salt kiln I own that sits disassembled in the back yard), I actually chose to build (and am mostly happy with) two small kilns. Because of those small kilns, I can see work from start to finish inside of a week. That kind of immediacy is nearly impossible with bigger kilns. Did I mention that I’m not a patient person?

Hands down my least favorite aspect of my shop is that the space is too
small – way too small. And that “teensyness” is exacerbated by the fact
that the office is also in the shop. At some point (currently slated
for the day after I win the Hoosier Lotto), I intend to take down the
small kiln building and double the size of the shop, building toward
the back.

A panoramic photo inside the teensy pottery studio.

My favorite tool is no longer available (the company that made them closed) but it’s a combination inside/outside caliper that was made by a company
called California Pot Tools. They are plastic calipers that slide along
an aluminum/alloy ruler (complete with 1/16-inch markings). I’ve
never yet come across any other calipers that come close to creating
the perfect fitting lids that these help me make.

Oh, and my other favorite shop equipment is an old guitar and a cheap mandolin hanging on the shop wall so I can take musical breaks whenever I feel like it. I feel like it often. Actually, my first love, art-wise, is music. I’ve never been “gifted” as a musician and I’m thankful that clay came along when
it did to give me an outlet that I both loved and could make a living
with. But my love for music has never diminished. Playing through just
a few songs is sometimes just enough of an escape from the pressures of
the day to help recharge me.