RSR: When did you start your own studio and how was it like then?
NH: I began making pots in my mid twenties. My first studio was in Colorado, with a mentor and good friend, John Spiteri. I made functional stoneware and traveled throughout the Colorado mountains selling at craft fairs. A real 60's lifestyle.
NH: 25 years ago, I opened my current studio, Milkhouse Studio after returning from a 4-year stay in Tokyo, Japan, where I taught 3D art and ceramics at Seisen International School. At the time when I began working in Pennsylvania, I taught at a local art center, and was introduced to wood firing in their wood kiln. High fire reduction firing has always been a part of my aesthetic.
RSR: Where do you take inspiration for your work?
NH: I consider my pottery as part of the tradition of Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, pots that spring from a form-follows-function tradition. My work is strongly influenced by Japanese pottery. Most of my glazes are traditional Japanese glazes. Oddly though, my pots are very American. I hope that the fusion of Japanese and American ceramics is evident and successful in my pots.
The art of food preparation and display is a heavy influence on making pottery for use. The same relationship that ikebana containers relate to flowers, my functional pots relate to food. It's a dance. I also see a mysterious connection between earth, the female, and nourishment that seems to belong to the art of making pots.
RSR: What do you enjoy most about your studio practice?
NH: Not much I don't like. I seem to end up in my studio every day. The laborious processes to work with clay, to mix glazes, and to sweep the floor are a part of a routine that I find pleasurable. Of course, the rhythm of sitting at the wheel and making pots, or assembling slab forms is the core of studio work. That also includes working out of ideas–how one form can evolve into something unexpected and quite special is glorious.
RSR: How did you encounter ikebana?
NH: Of course my time in Japan began my interest in Ikebana. Though I never took instruction in Japan, I visited many Ikebana exhibitions, both traditional and wild ones, and I was fascinated by them. A student in my pottery class, Jose Juico, was my first introduction to the ikebana container forms. His interest and expertise was in the forms from the Ikenobo and Ohara school.
NH: Of course my time in Japan began my interest in Ikebana. Though I never took instruction in Japan, I visited many Ikebana exhibitions, both traditional and wild ones, and I was fascinated by them. A student in my pottery class, Jose Juico, was my first introduction to the ikebana container forms. His interest and expertise was in the forms from the Ikenobo and Ohara school.
RSR: How did learning more about ikebana shape the forms you are creating? And what are the joyful moments?
NH: I was struck by the elegance and beauty of the forms and wanted to explore making them. Some of the forms are quite challenging to construct. There is a great pleasure to figure out how to make these extreme forms. The precise requirements of the forms attract me as well. They make me laugh, too–the tiny bases that risk falling over, for instance.
NH: Jose and I began teaching these workshops together. He taught me a lot about flowers, and the discipline of various arrangements (most of which I'm still trying to understand). He would bring in different publications about the Ikebana forms, and beautiful images of arrangements. When there are 5 or 6 students in my studio, with all their arrangements filling the room, combined with their specific ideas for containers, it's very magnificent. When the exuberance of the flowers become a quiet or majestic arrangement breathing life into the flowers and the containers, it's exhilarating.