I have to be a potter. My life has placed me in the perfect position to be a potter. I've been given an opportunity and privledge and with it the responsibilitiy of being the best potter I can be. If you are given a talent, that is a gift from God. If you use that talent effectivelyl, that is your give back to God. I have to be a potter.

My life in ceramics began in 1946 when my father returned from WWII, a young man starting a family and looking for a job. The job was with the O. Hommel Co., a ceramic supply and manufacturing company in Pittsburgh, Pa. I was born in 1951, so I like to think that I was in ceramics before I was born. My father started his own ceramic supply company in 1960 and I spent my childhood working in the family business. In 1970 I left college and began a pottery apprenticeship with Legatha Walston and Charles Counts.

I was a young man and there were still some wild oats left to sow. I left pottery and spent a few years on a horse race track. Sold a horse, took the money and opened a pottery studio in Florida. Realizing that I needed a formal education, I went back to college and graduated from New York University in 1980 with a double degree in Industrial Arts and Classics. I'm also a graduate of the Latin/Greek institute in New York City.

After working a few years I opened my own ceramic supply company in Nashville, TN. in 1986. Besides founding the company, I lead the team that invented Opulence Glaze (trademark) which we developed and distributed around the world. In 1999 I had the opportunity to sell the supply business and the glaze line to a major European company that wanted to enter into the potter's supply business and I had my chance to return to being a potter.