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He makes things that
you can use—a utilitarian approach to the art of ceramics. Better still, they are priced affordably, so
you can buy them when you are young and not altogether comfortably situated in
life, and have handmade things to serve food with and eat it off of. The pleasure of hand made things can be a part of your life in a way that was true for people long ago, but less so today. My father thought it was such a treat to have store bought bread, because his mother or grandmother made bread every day. That is a remarkable thing—to be able to
enjoy someone’s creativity in the midst of your busy every day life, and
conversely, to help them support themselves while they do it.
The thing that I love the most that I bought that day was a
very large raku bowl the Doug made in 1972—it is the salad bowl that I needed
for serving 25-40 people. I have a huge
one for crowds of over 50 that I bought in Vermont, and I have one for 15-25
people that my friend Ivy bought me. I
have two that I use when we are 5-12 people that I bought in Thailand (made of
sustainably grown teak wood rather than ceramic), but I lacked one in between
and when I saw it I feel immediately in love with it. It is a tall elegant shape, and it had a lot
of experience making people happy—it had been serving food longer than I
had. I used it for the first time, and
it performed exactly how I thought it would, and I am so grateful that he was
willing to part with it.
The unexpected thing about Doug is that he is helping to
raise awareness of the potters in San Juan de Oriente in Nicaragua. My eldest son spent a fall in this village,
working with Jose Ortiz and other artisans there to organize an exhibition of
their work in Finland. Doug had many
pieces of pottery for sale from this wonderfully talented village for sale—he
is helping to publicize their talent, on top of selling his own work.
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