Frank Philipps Pottery History
Intrigued with the creative potential and the physical challenges of making pottery, my career began with an intensive pottery workshop, where I found expert direction, inspiration, and an enduring love for the process of making pots at Pond Farm over the course of four summers. Bauhaus master potter, Marguerite Wildenhain, taught her students not only how to make pottery, but also how to think and live as an artist, based on her own classical European training, plus 50 years rich with experience.
My interests led to an apprenticeship at an Ashland pottery, where I worked on the kick wheel the entire four years. The simplicity and rigor of the kick wheel teaches the appropriate speed for each operation involved with the throwing process in a very natural order, providing a feel for the clay that an electric wheel, with its power and speed, can mask. This experience was fundamental to my education as a throwing potter. I used the kick wheel in my personal studio for another two years, then transferred to an electric wheel: My new wheel offered a speed controller with the feel of a kick wheel at slow speeds, while increasing my capacity to produce, making it possible to earn a decent living.
When I finished my apprenticeship in 1979, my wife, Nancy, and I started participating in arts and craft fairs all over the west coast and into Arizona and Nevada. We enjoyed the travel and soon had an annual route doing eight to ten fairs a year, along with wholesale at a few select galleries. Nimbus in our hometown of Ashland, Oregon was our first Gallery. We had good consistent success with fairs for over 25 years and still have standing invitations to return to many as "Hall of Fame" exhibitors. During this time, we opened our first store in Ashland, which became home to our pottery and the fine arts and crafts of several friends whose work we much admired. The store moved to three different locations in town and grew progressively larger in floorspace with each move over the next sixteen years. Our last location shared a wall with the building where I started as an apprentice.
In January, 2010, we closed our downtown gallery and moved our pottery to the Internet and to three Oregon galleries, a fourth to come soon.
I continue to make pots and feel more excitement for the process: it is all so very interesting, and there still is so much to learn. Last year I started two day seminars in the form of demonstrations and conversations about living as a pottery: It is something I find very enjoyable.
Making pottery as a skilled craftsman in the 21st century is not an easy task to which one can dedicate a life. Marguerite's expressive and imaginative pottery, her wonderful teaching methods, her humanity, and her deep personal dedication to making and teaching pottery has given me enduring strength and inspiration for more than 37 years. I still draw from this deep well, and enjoy the support of my family, friends, and the customers who take delight in the pots I make.