artisan showcase:
Pied Potter Hamelin
Traditional Redware Alive and Well in Central Massachusetts

By Helen H. Hill (redeco@worldnet.att.net)
The exotic aroma of Darjeeling is a pretty pleasant thing, I thought as I brought a stunning redware cup to my lips. I returned it to the saucer and turned my attention to the homemade ladyfinger nestled beside it. Good heavens! Reporting is a wonderful job. I sat at the edge of Rick Hamelin’s garden filled with heirloom tomatoes and other old world delicacies. Cardinals called to each other from the impossibly tall maples above his new studio just across the gravel drive. He’s now in his twenty-sixth year as a potter and in his twentieth as the Pied Potter Hamelin.
He brought my attention back to my cup and saucer and the matching teapot on the wicker table between us. “I find a design like this squiggle and dot pattern inspired by an English original that was uncovered in the big dig in Boston, and expand it into a whole line,” he emphasized. He speaks fast and in a booming voice. I struggled to take notes to take notes as fast as he tried to tell me everything about his work.
Continuing a New England Tradition
“My emphasis is on 18th and 19th century New England forms,” not pausing for even a minute as he poured me another cup of tea. “I make about thirty different shapes in sixteen different styles. Including plate patterns, that makes over eight hundred different pots.” His forms are traditional - jugs, covered storage jars, teapots, cups and saucers, tankards, plates, posset pots, platters, and bean pots. He tells me that it’s easiest to sell things that are functional. Jugs simply don’t retail as well as storage jars or plates.
All of Rick’s glazes are completely food safe and without lead. He explains that we are only talking about one glaze anyway. It’s the slip or colored clay underneath the glaze that gives each pot its own color. He says that he uses this ware for cooking and serving all the time. He makes baked beans in his bean pots and bread pudding in a Turk’s head. He bakes bread on pie plates and platters, and even makes pizza in a large round dish with low sides. He advised me to remember that you need to season your pots just like you would an iron skillet so the food doesn’t stick. He feel that his pots are very practical for use in the kitchen.
Pied Potter at the Wheel
We rose from our shaded spot by the garden and moved to the studio, built very much in the spirit of his Victorian house nearby. The double doors were salvaged from a demolished site in Wrentham, Massachusetts a few years ago and reinforce the spirit of the homestead. The pottery studio’s interior is two stories high and is bathed in light from the multiple west facing windows. Despite the heat of the day, the space is cool and surprisingly quiet. Rick’s wife, Gariné, who decorates ceramics under the business name of Kulina Folk Art, uses the loft at the north side of the building.
Shelves of his product tower over the potter’s wheel in the center of the painted cement floor. The Pied Potter dons his apron and sits at the wheel, of course talking the whole time. The term throwing a pot come from the Middle English to twist  he tells as he places a lump of clay on the wheel head. “Working on the wheel requires nothing more than pressure and motion, “ he explains. “You simply pinch the clay to thin it out, and you are moving the clay subtly to bring it up.” Two or three pulls and he has already created a cylinder shape, which he pinches out to an ovoid shape. He shows me how to change it through the addition of a handle, a spout, or a cover.
Massachusetts is Rich in Red Clay Deposits
He talks as he works, informing me that the oldest recorded potter in this area was Salem’s John Pride circa 1640. Massachusetts is rich in red clay. There is lots of it, and it’s the iron that keeps it red. You have to be careful, though because you can’t use clay with more than ten percent sand. Any more than that and the mix is too abrasive, a type better for brick making. Sheffield Pottery out in the Berkshiers has been working clay for about sixty years. Their clay is terrific for making tennis courts, but not good for throwing pots. Hamelin explains that a clay pit can reveal different properties within even thirty feet of space. This is one of the reasons that all clay he uses comes from commercial sources. It’s more consistent.
Before I knew it he was working on a bottle shaped vase, showing me that it’s impossible to work the narrow thin opening with your hands. He uses a skewer that he calls a Pu-Pu Platter stick. He next showed me how to make a teapot, and a specially of his own design, a chicken shaped cream jug. Rick reminded me that all the wares that come off the wheel really aren’t pottery until they are fired. He laughs that before firing they aren’t much different than mud.
I’m Glad I Stuck with It
Rick is a Sturbridge, Massachusetts native who, twenty-five years ago, started work at Old Sturbridge Village having no idea that this area was rich in the history of potters and brick makers. While there, he participated in three archeological digs at sites of early potteries. One was on Route 20 on Brimfield, another was in Holland, MA way off in the woods, and the third was in Goshen, CT. “History is important to me, “ he comments. “Pottery history in Massachusetts is being lost with each passing year. But I have gained a lot of appreciation for the history and geology of the state, and I’m pretty proud that I stuck with it.”
Are Rick Hamelin and potters like him simply great reproduction artists? Or are they continuing a tradition? Before the question is out of my mouth he’s dissecting it and spitting it back. “You have to bring something new to your craft every day,” he emphasizes. We agree that some of the shapes are timeless, but remember that this potter is bringing to his traditional form a non-lead glaze that looks like it’s made with lead. Hamelin feels that the most difficult thing is coming up with a glaze that has character because some of the commercial glazes aren’t very exciting. They often look like cheap vinyl. His glaze is completely made from scratch. He got the recipe from a mid-nineteenth century research book in his collection of more than one hundred fifty volumes on pottery.
Research Valuable and Dedication Sound
For ten years Hamelin was selected by Early American Life as one of America’s 100 best craftsmen. He has performed over one hundred sixty demonstrations since 1985, most of them funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He lectures as the Pied Potter and his magical potter’s wheel, informing and inspiring his audiences on the subjects of pottery, brick making, and potters’ history. A few years ago, he led a five week project in coordination with the art students at Quaboag Regional High School in which the group made and replaced a dozen terracotta roof tile on the library that were destroyed in a hurricane in the early 80’s. The replacements are virtually undetectable.
 The Pied Potter work is available  on his website an d through The Handmaiden at 538 Main St. in Sturbridge  (508) 347-7757. He plans to  offer open house demonstrations for clients starting next year. Right now he is looking forward to exploring more variety in clay colors . He wants to do some southwest Connecticut glazes in warmer tones as well as some of the darker Maine-type finishes. He quickly adds that it might be nice to experiment with the more distinctive Pennsylvania colors as well. “Even after twenty-five years, I’m still not finished learning - and there is so much more to learn.” he says earnestly. “I am a redware potter who lectures on the subject and demands that our history be recognized. I feel my work is important. My research is valuable and my dedication sound. My choice is to make what I know and love.”