Beginning with his boyhood in Indiana, where Benfey and his friends played at a creek and "pried handfuls of cold blue clay from between the rocks and covered our faces and bodies with it," Benfey's intricate meander weaves through accounts of the noted Jugtown pottery, the Japanese village of Tachikui where Benfey worked with the Takeda family at their pottery, visits with potters Mark Hewitt and Karen Karnes, Black Mountain College in its heyday and after, and Wedgwood agent Thomas Griffiths' perilous quest through the North Carolina wilderness for the snow white "Cherokee clay" that would allow Wedgwood to make porcelain wares as beautiful as those of Chinese potters. Making an appearance along the way are many famous potters, painters, musicians, and writers.

But what of those boys playing at the creek? "We barely knew ourselves," says Benfey. "Our bicycles could wait. Our families could wait. We were in another world now, hieroglyphed in blue. Our pockets under the sheltering trees should have been filled with grapeshot and pemmican."

 

Q. I'm having some problems with warping and cracking in my plates and platters. Any suggestions?

A. Try making small, U-shaped notches in your plate's or platter's foot ring. During firing the notches allow air trapped under the foot ring to escape. Many potters find that these notches eliminate their problems with warping and cracking, including the dreaded s-crack.